How Lucy Saw Greece and Egypt Her Own Way – Traveling with a White Cane

I have to take a minute to record how Lucy navigated our family trip to Greece, Cairo and Luxor, Egypt with her white cane and her severe vision impairment.

Because it was incredible.

Although she can’t see most things, that girl was so attentive and interested that she may have learned more than the rest of us. She walked all over creation, the ball of her cane getting more pointed and broken down by the hour over all those rough pathways, and listened and learned.

Love her sitting right in the middle of our group here below, that smile on her face saying so much.

What Travel Looks Like with Low Vision

Years ago, when we knew Lucy’s vision was fading quickly, we made every effort to help her see and experience as much as she could. Oh how we wanted her to be able to hold onto the things she could see. We wanted her to have a frame of reference so that she could keep the visions of those thing in her heart when she could no longer see them.

That was the impetus behind our trip to Africa.

She loved animals with all her heart, so we pulled out all the stops and went on a safari. We worked to describe every detail so that she could memorize them and carry them with her.

Oh that trip was a lot of work. But it was worth its weight in gold since that girl still talks about it as her favorite of favorites. She could still see those animals but was learning to memorize how feeling them felt at the same time.

As her vision impairment has become worse, little by little, she can no longer see animals, or trees or even her beloved sunsets. It’s difficult to understand how she sees, because she still has such a small field of vision.

Lucy gradually experiences the world more and more differently than the rest of us do, and we are all trying to adapt.

On this trip to Greece and Egypt we were still trying to explain all the details for her to hold onto, but this time she couldn’t see the details carved into the ancient pillars or the colors of the hieroglyphics.

Using Her Other Senses To “See”

Instead she has adapted to be an incredible listener.

With her heart.

And then she asks the best questions. She takes notes on her phone with the text blown up to fill the whole screen, her face hovering close, shifting a bit from side to side to get the right vantage point.

Lucy also feels things — the rough stone under her fingers, the uneven ancient pathways under her feet, the heat rising off the desert — in a way the rest of us don’t register.

What she misses in visual detail she makes up for in presence. That girl was all in.

The Moments That Stopped Me in My Tracks:

There were so many moments with Lucy on this trip that I wanted to freeze and hold onto forever.

Dave and Elle, one on each side, guiding her safely down the uneven steps from the Acropolis.

And up narrow walkways of ancient Egyptian temples too.

Elle quietly describing what the carvings at Karnak Temple looked like, their arms intertwined. Max steering her through the chaotic midnight streets of Cairo without being asked.

Grace hugging her close when she was tired.

Claire taking her arm on the stairs going down into the catacombs. The Barney family, our friends who traveled with us, naturally folding her into their care as if she were one of their own.

And Lucy herself, riding a camel in front of the pyramids:

…floating in a hot air balloon over the Valley of the Kings at dawn, standing close to every tour guide willing herself to internalize all the information they were spilling out.

That above is one of my favorite photos from the trip. Just look at Lucy’s sweet face.

I loved getting little snippets of the notes she took to help hold onto it all.

I was so impressed with how she handled chaos. And how she has learned so much better how to self-regulate. When she should stay on the bus and have a little decompression and when she wanted to push forward and keep learning and maneuvering those ancient pathways.

What Lucy Taught Me About Independence

I’ve written a lot on this blog about raising independent kids. About teaching them to work hard and figure things out and not need us quite so much. But watching Lucy on this trip reminded me that independence doesn’t always look the way we expect it to.

It doesn’t look like doing everything alone. It looks like knowing when to take someone’s arm. It looks like asking good questions and trusting people and showing up anyway, even when the terrain is hard.

That is the kind of independence I want all my kids to grow into.

Lucy still defiantly refuses help a lot of the time. Enough to drive us a bit nutty. But on this trip, she welcomed it.

It’s like she knew she couldn’t experience it to its fullest without help, and she was always open to it.

I am so grateful she was with us. So grateful for every sibling and friend who quietly and so naturally stepped in to help her.

And I’m so grateful for this girl of mine who keeps showing all of us what it looks like to live fully — even when you can’t see every detail of the world in front of you.

I know there are all kinds of ups and downs ahead. Especially as another college year is looking us in the face in a week or so.

But it’s beautiful to see even a small snippet of what becomes possible when kids move toward their own independence, even when the path looks different.