The Gift of Sight Written by Richard Weiss, M.D. for the “Chicken Soup” series, “Chicken Soup for the Traveler’s Soul” I will never forget the look on Stevie Wonder’s face. In appreciation of Stevie lending his name to our One World Sight Project, an effort to cure world blindness, I was giving him a small token of our thanks. There is a blind sculpture garden in the Picasso museum in the south of France that publishes a book that recreates some of Picasso greatest works in relief for the vision impaired. The book is stark white, resembling the Beatles’ white album, and after several pages in Braille, there followed 15-20 embossed Picasso artworks. Because Stevie had always been blind, I was not sure that he would be able to recognize and appreciate drawings and symbols, a skill sometimes absent in people visually impaired from birth. I held my breath as I placed his hands on the book and he began to turn the pages, closely examining each one. “Wait a minute, let’s go back a few pages,” he exclaimed. The expression on his face at the sudden recognition of one of the previous pages was to me worth all of [...]
