1 . When I was four, I lost my sight by falling off a box car and landing on my head. Now I’m thirty-two. I can vaguely remember the brightness of sunshine and what color red is. It’d be wonderful to see again, but a disaster can do strange things to people.

    1    . The loss of my eyes made me appreciate more what I had left.

It took me years to discover and strengthen this belief. It had to start with the most trivial things. Once a man gave me an indoor baseball. “I can’t use this,” I was hurt, thinking he was teasing me. “Take it with you,” he insisted, “and roll it around.” The words stuck in my head. By rolling the ball I could feel where it went.     2    —playing baseball. Later, at Philadelphia’s Overbrook School for the Blind, I invented a successful variation of baseball. We called it ground ball.

    3    —I believe it! The more readily you are able to make them, the more peaceful your private world becomes. The adjustment is never easy. I was once puzzled and afraid, knowing nowhere to go. But I was lucky, for I have my parents, teachers and others who saw in me a potential to live.

The hardest lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself. Had I not done that, I’d have broken down and become a chair rocker for the rest of my life. And the path to the belief is never smooth.     4    .