"What can I do?"

Hadley

“What can I do”

Char: I was bitter and angry because I couldn't see well, and I wanted to be just like everybody else. And I was pushing people away.

Marc: This is Hadley’s Insights and Sound Bites, where people facing vision loss share what has helped them cope and adjust.

Char: Hello, my name is Char Cook and I live in Portland, Oregon. I am calling you today because I've been very inspired to many of the sound bites that I've been listening to from other people. And today I listened to a lady say, it's not all rainbows and butterflies. And now I'm calling.

I have retinitis pigmentosa, pretty common cause of vision loss. I started to lose my sight when I was seven and I became as a young child and a teenager and a woman in my early twenties. I was bitter and angry at the world, at my family, at myself because I couldn't see well. And I wanted to be just like everybody else. And I was pushing people away. Nobody dared even bring up vision loss or learning to read braille or traveling with the cane because I would bite their heads off.

But I went to the Oregon Commission for the Blind. And I met a gentleman who was blind and he was my counselor. And he cared about me, and I knew that. So one day we were talking, he was in his office, door was shut, and he said to me, with tears running down his cheeks as he was hammering on his desk, “Char, if you don't drop the attitude, you're not going to have the life you think you're going to have.”

I left his office for the first time in my life with a window of hope, believing that I could be blind and I could be happy. And I started to reach for happiness after that. It was an instant. I didn't become a new person in a moment, but I began to look at vision loss through different eyes.

And I began to think, I believe that there is happiness ahead for me. I went on to, been in business quite a few years, been a business owner. But here's what I wanted to say today. I found that giving to someone has brought me great joy. I did a training some years ago to be part of a volunteer on a metro crisis line, and part of that training included how to talk to people with depression. And the point that they made early on was, an antidote for depression, many times can be looking around to see what you can do for someone else. I put that into play, and that has been my M.O. and it's been my mantra. What can I do for someone else? And so many, many times that has given me grace for the day and hope for tomorrow.

So, my way of doing that major way is that I make gallons and gallons of soup. I have three sisters, one sister, and I started during COVID to make 10, 15, 20 gallons of soup in a day and give that away. We did it once a week. We are doing it now every month. It has enriched my life to hand someone a quart of soup, no questions asked, and just know that somebody else might be better for it. Thank you for listening to me.

Marc: You never know who might need to hear your story. If you’d like to share with us, just leave us a message on our Insights & Sound Bites voicemail. By calling, 847-512-4867. Or, you can use your smartphone or computer and email us a recording to [email protected].