What is Normal?

Redefining "Normal"

Albert Rizzi, 45, woke from a months-long coma brought on by meningitis and discovered he was blind. He didn't panic; events in the "'tween state" had somehow prepared him. It helped that his father told him, "Accept it; be the best blind person you can be." He did have to come to terms with a whole new way of living. "I look at my blindness as a characteristic. I focus on my ability. Disability is imposed on me," largely, he says, by society's fear of blindness. "There are technologies that allow us to do things. They tell me, for example, what color my clothes are. I'm angry they're not more available—and that businesses don't understand how able we are. The blind are great problem-solvers, for example, because we always have to assess our environment to keep from falling down stairs." What's normal? "I'm an overachiever; I want to believe I can do anything I want. I may have to do it differently, with more planning, but do it I will." Rizzi now runs his own educational organization, My Blind Spot—"because we all have blind spots."

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