As we drove away, the tears slid down my cheeks. I was envisioning the life our 5 month old, first born, son would lead.
My husband, driving, reached for my hand and reminded me the doctor had to give the worst case scenario to avoid the possibility of law suits if they didn't prepare their patients. "Besides," he added, " at least we know he'll get scholarships for college."
At two our guy pointed out a double rainbow to us. At that point, we decided we would never tell him he couldn't do something because of his vision.
The more we learned about albinism from the albinism community we found on line, and watched our child grow, the more we realized the only thing we would need to keep an eye on was making sure he wore sunscreen.
He is a voracious reader but he reads normal print books. He just holds them closer to his face. He sat in the front row in school and had permission to get up if he needed to, to see the board. The district's vision teacher helped him learn to use a telescope to see distance if needed and advocated for him when the Project Lead the Way teacher for his engineering class tried to shrink 4 pages to fit on one two sided paper. Our guy graduated 9th in his class of about 280. He got scholarships based on academics, not because he is visually impaired. He was on the High School archery team and scored high enough that his score helped his team earn their way to state all 4 years.
However, driving was always the elephant in the room. We found out around 16 that his vision was good enough to learn to drive with bi-optics. Because of the time involved, he didn't start with the training until this January. He has been working with an instructor trained in teaching bi-optic driving for the past 3 months.
A couple weeks ago, his instructor came for an evening session to see if night driving would be a possibility. He came back about a half hour after leaving.
"Not going to happen," he said. "The lights are too bright coming at me."
I could hear the disappointment in his voice, but he tried not to be bothered by it. He also informed me he would be taking the driving test for day driving at the DMV soon.
Well, "soon" turned out to be today.
At 1, when I knew his test should be starting, I sent out one more prayer that he pass.
I had told him to let me know because I couldn't wait until I got home. At 2:15 I sent him a text that read, "???"
While waiting for kids at bus duty I quickly checked my phone and read his text, "I passed! Just took a while for the paperwork."
Relief, joy, euphoria...not sure how to describe the gift from God this is. He is a 20 year old young man who has been given, not only a license to drive a car, but a license to live a life that is as independent as he wants it to be.
When we found out all those years ago, I prayed not that it not be true, but that God grant me the acceptance of what it is and to help our son live his best life possible.
I've felt every day that God is good. Today his Grace fills my soul.
Thank you God for this most wonderful gift.
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