MAN OF VISION BLESSED WITH A BLIND SPOT

By Batya Ruddell

Reprinted with permission from Bina Magazine

All rights reserved.  Copyright 2011. Bina Magazine 718-305-5200

Young Daniel Meyer had everything going for him that spring of 1942.

A healthy twenty-two-year-old boy working in his family’s business, it was only a matter of time before he would marry a nice, respectable girl, build a family, and, if he worked hard, he’d most likely take over the company. Endless opportunities were open to him, but all that was to change, as he was plunged into the dark world of doctors, diagnosis, and decisions. Life for Daniel would never be the same.

The entire family reeled from this devastating blow that had arrived from nowhere, and the turmoil only increased the doctors’ inability to find a reason for Daniel’s loss of sight. Everybody, not only him, was groping in the dark. A guessing game commenced that required Daniel and his family to travel from hospital to hospital across the country.

Back in the 1940’s, medicine was much less developed, and the Meyers found themselves shuffled around from one expert to another, as they attempted to understand their son’s case. From their hometown in Boston, they journeyed to John Hopkins in Baltimore and Mt. Sinai in New York, often staying for extended periods of time.

Meanwhile, Daniel lay in a state of depression. The shock of his new reality was too overwhelming, and for the first year and a half, while making the rounds to the doctors he refused to participate in anything reminiscent of his past life. Each hospital promised new hope and, with each disappointment, he descended deeper into despair.

In the back of his mind, Daniel believed that just as suddenly his sight had suddenly disappeared, it will return in the same way, so he resisted learning Braille or anything else that implied his condition is permanent. This was an agonizing time for him, during which he experience intense emotional pain.

It was only after a lengthy period of mourning and passing through the stages of grief that Daniel reached a place of acceptance that enabled him to learn Braille and live with a guide dog. Eventually, he landed a job in a Braille book factory.

* * * *

By now, Daniel was thirty years old and the only child in his family not yet married. His mother, a strong, ambitious woman who firmly believed in her son, set out to find a wife for him. She discovered Esti Schwartz, who was a little older than Daniel was and had a severe limp. Her feet were badly disfigured from a childhood accident; as a result; her entire body was bent over when she walked. Esti was a lovely person, kind caring, and very spiritual ­­­­­­­­-- qualities that Daniel would appreciate.

Esti and Daniel built a beautiful home together. Esti, the more religious of the two, took her husband with her along this path, and he became much more observant as a result. All four of their children attended Hebrew day school—a far more religious education than Daniel had ever received.

Daniel thrived as his marriage transformed him. He became a very upbeat, spiritual person and was able to cope with his blindness much better than the past. One thing that gave him tremendous satisfaction was mentoring others who had also lost their sight. Besides being a devoted husband and father, he was finally achieving personal fulfillment.

* * * *

By the time he was in his fifties, all of his children, except his youngest son, were married; weddings he attended which brought him much joy, but he had never been blessed to see.

One morning, he woke up with a severe toothache, so he scheduled a dental appointment for later that day. After the initial examination by the dentist, it was found that Daniel had a deep infection in one of his teeth. He would need an extraction, not a difficult or complicated procedure, but one that would change Daniel’s life irrevocably.

As he reclined in the dentist’s chair, aware of the drilling and tugging on his infected tooth, the most shocking thing happened to him since the trauma he’d experienced thirty years earlier. Right there, on the spot, he began to see!

Yes, it was really true! As Daniel began to scream and shout, the dentist stood by, completely confused. What had happened to cause his patient to rant and rave like someone having a nervous breakdown? But Daniel couldn’t help it. Just like thirty years previously, he was in complete bewilderment; the enormity of what was happening was simply beyond comprehension.

From the dentist’s office, he went straight to a research clinic where he was kept under observation like a laboratory specimen once again. Patches were placed over his eyes in order not to endanger them from exposure to too much light, and also to help Daniel adjust to the brightness and glare. It took time for him to adapt to being a “seeing” person again, and for a while he suffered from severe headaches. Still, this was an adjustment he was more than happy to make!

Overnight, he became a medical miracle. Professors from all over the world wanted to meet the man who, after thirty years, had regained his sight just as miraculously as he’d lost it. He met with top specialists, including physicians and researchers from Harvard.

It was speculated, but never confirmed, that there had been some pressure on the optic nerve that the tooth extraction had relieved. Actually, nobody really understood the reason for Daniel’s sudden restoration of sight, and a final diagnosis was never reached. But the main thing was that he remained perfectly sighted for the rest of his life!

* * * *

Once again, Daniel found himself in a period of readjustment as he slowly accustomed himself to the “seeing” world; it was not as easy as one would imagine. The big, unspoken fear of those around him was what would happen once he could “see” his wife. How would he react? Would it change anything between them? Esti, too, was understandably nervous about his reaction.

But the fear was ungrounded. There were many, many things that Daniel saw in Esti, but her severe deformity was not one of them. His newly restored eyes were able to look right past that, something, he admitted, he might not have been able to do before. He was quoted at the time as saying “G-d had to make me physically blind in order not to see the things that could have blinded me. In this way, I could see my wife for the beautiful person she is!”