Thought for today:

If you ever find happiness by hunting for it, you will find it, as the old woman did her lost glasses, safe on her nose all the time.

Heartwarmer Gem, Grace Witwer Housholder, tells us a wonderful story today about a man who looks at life with "20/20 vision in a world where lesser men are blind." Thanks Grace for making Heartwarmers so special! And please say hi to Timmie and Karen for us.

Much of this story is written by a man who can't use a computer because the glare is too painful for his eyes. Forty-four years ago he was born in a Kentucky hollow. A birth defect made him colorblind and robbed him of most of his sight. "Life is definitely a journey, but it sure has been a pleasure walking this journey," Timmie wrote in one of his amazing essays. "I have eye problems, but I try to do what is right and enjoy what life has to offer." His handwriting has a tremor to it. The tip of his forefinger was cut off in an accident and that makes it hard for him to guide his pen and create the words that he can barely see. His papers are crinkly because he presses so hard with his pen.

Timmie's father worked in a coal mine for twenty years. Seeking a better life, the family moved to Michigan when Timmie was 8 and, nine years later, to Indiana. Timmie quit school after ninth grade because he couldn't see well enough to read. At 17, Timmie took a job in a foundry and worked there until it closed. Then he found a job in production maintenance. His wife drives him to work because his eyesight is not good enough for him to get a license. He has only missed one day of work -- to attend a funeral. His parents don't have a high school education, but they wanted their children to complete school. Timmie was the only one of the five children who didn't. So, last April he enrolled in an adult basic education class taught by my cousin, Karen.

Karn used a copy machine to enlarge Timmie's worksheets. But even then, Timmie had trouble seeing small numbers (such as those used for exponents) and figuring out punctuation signs like commas and periods. At first, he couldn't even write a sentence or spell the simplest words. After all, he hadn't written in 28 years.

But listen to the words Timmie painstakingly presses into the paper. "If you don't help yourself, it would do very little good for anyone else to try to help you. The reasons that I say this are, first, why should they? It would do no good anyway..."

"He learned to state things as they are and back it up with examples and facts," Karen said when she shared his essays with me. "I'm a hard grader. He studied very hard and truly set his sights on a higher goal."

"I was born in Kentucky," Timmie writes. "I lived in what we called a hollow. Our drinking water came from a coal mine. We raised most of our own food. A hollow, if you have never seen one, would be hard to imagine. I will try to describe it. You turn off the paved highway, go down a dirt road, sometimes down, sometimes up over a hill. The road is most of the time between two hills. Houses are on both sides of the road. Water came from the coal mine (because) the coal mine had run out of coal and was just a hole in the ground. The water ran through the ground and into the mine. It was clear, cold and the best water I ever had. We raised our own food. We raised gardens, chickens, hogs, rabbits, almost all the food we needed. To live in a hollow, drink water from the mine, and to raise your own food, was a lot better times for me than now."

Karen found a church source for free large print books, and soon Timmie was taking home books on the Civil War and reading aloud to his wife.

Timmie doesn't look like his name. He has a long salt and pepper beard, eyes that seem to see the inner you and strong arms that extend from the sleeveless T-shirts that he wears even in the dead of winter. Don't his bare arms feel the cold? His lips seem to have a permanent upward curve.

Timmie is the first student Karen has had that qualified for "special accommodations" for taking the GED (Graduation Equivalency Degree) test.

Because of doctors' statements, Timmie was allowed extra time and the test was in large print. He finished the eight hour test in six and a half hours. Karen expects Timmie will do very well on his GED.

But, the father of two told me he fears he will lose his job. The factory where he works has been sold and the buyer has been closing plants. He says if he loses his house, he'll try to keep the piece of land he has in the country, because being outdoors means so much to him. His land doesn't have a house, just a barn.

"He's learned from me, and I've learned from him," says Karen, who has lupus and, like Timmie, can't drive. "We both know you play the hand you're dealt."

"I used to ride horses, climb trees and run over the hills of Kentucky," Timmie writes. "My cousin and I would go around and find the trees that looked the hardest to climb. Then we would climb them..."

With the downturn in the economy, some would say the future looks bleak for Timmie. But, I left him feeling that the man who would find the hardest tree to climb, when he was a child, will use those same resources to continue to live with dignity, "do what is right and enjoy what life has to offer."

That's 20/20 vision in a world where lesser men are blind.

by: Grace Witwer Housholder

Grace is a Heartwarmer Gem and an award-winning journalist. You see many of her Funny Kid sayings at the end of our heartwarmers. She is the author of "The Funny Things Kids Say Will Brighten Any Day" books. You can review this book at the following location:

The Funny Things Kids Say

This story may not be reproduced in any way, without the author's written permission.