David House brought his 8-year-old granddaughter, Lily, to Minnesota this month for a three-week stay. She got to visit the Mall of America and a petting zoo, and on Tuesday she even got to play softball with some new friends.
It was a chance for the two to bond and, more important, a chance for David to help teach his granddaughter how to be blind.
Lily is attending the Buddy Summer Program at Blind Inc., housed in the former Pillsbury mansion in Minneapolis' Whittier neighborhood. Blind or sight-impaired kids come from all over the country to work on both the practical and emotional aspects of being blind.
David, 59, learned he had retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative disease, when he was 5 years old. The disease is inherited, but the gene is recessive, so both parents have to have the gene in order for their children to have the disease. David's wife does not have the gene, and none of their four children has the disease. David and his three sisters, however, all have the disease, which is rare.
"When Lily was young, I was certain she didn't have it," said David. "It was a long shot. When it was diagnosed, I was pretty shocked and depressed. Lily is at the onset stage, so I wanted to get her here as soon as possible to start to deal with being blind. [Blind Inc.] is one of the top places in the country."
The agency let Lily into the program even though she's a year younger than its youngest participants, mostly because her grandfather also came to take adult refresher courses.
In an upstairs room Tuesday, Lily was learning to use a talking typewriter to craft sentences. She wore a Pokémon T-shirt and, at times, a blindfold. Students who can still partly see wear blindfolds to get them used to not being able to see at all. Lily took commands from the computer, successfully writing out "I ate a fish salad."
It wasn't easy.
