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" When Nicole Kear was 19, she went to the eye doctor expecting to leave with a stronger prescription. Instead, she got sucker-punched with life-changing news: She was slowly going blind \u2014 and nothing could be done to stop it. Panicked and not interested in a pity party, she kept her prognosis a secret from everyone but family for years. In this excerpt from her bittersweet new memoir, the mom of three reveals how it was only later, when everything literally went dim, that she started to see the light. The specialist had said 10 years, that I might have 10 years before my eyes died. The year of Rosa&amp;#039;s birth marked the 10th anniversary of my diagnosis. But the anniversary came and went, and still, miraculously, it hadn&amp;#039;t happened \u2014 I hadn&amp;#039;t turned blind\u2026yet. Of course, signs that blindness was barreling its way toward me were plentiful and multiplied with each passing year. There was the medical evidence: the visual field tests that showed my tunnel vision getting tighter, the contact lens prescriptions that kept getting stronger \u2014 until the famous retinal specialist I&amp;#039;d started seeing finally told me we&amp;#039;d hit a limit, that no matter how much he adjusted the prescription it wouldn&amp;#039;t make my vision any better. It had gotten tough to tell if I&amp;#039;d put my contacts in correctly, because I could hardly perceive the difference between what the world looked like with them in and with them out. As my disease progressed, there were cataracts, edemas and the development of color blindness. Thankfully, I&amp;#039;d already taught Rosa&amp;#039;s older sibling, Lorenzo, his colors, so he could help keep me from looking like I was getting dressed in the dark, which I basically was. Tip from the (secretly) blind: You know you&amp;#039;re headed toward disaster when you rely on a 5-year-old boy for fashion advice. But I had bigger problems than wardrobe mishaps. By Rosa&amp;#039;s third birthday, I couldn&amp;#039;t read regular print anymore. It was getting harder to fill out forms at the pediatrician&amp;#039;s office and at the preschool. I&amp;#039;d taken to ordering Caesar salad at restaurants because it was a safe bet that it was on the menu somewhere. I smashed my shins into coffee tables and my forehead into monkey bars on a regular basis. I missed stairs, handshakes, sign-up sheets. The expensive sunglasses I wore to filter the glare were the consolation prize for not being able to recognize acquaintances until they were practically on top of me. And I couldn&amp;#039;t read Dr. Seuss anymore; that was a blow. Amidst a day full of wiping tears, noses and bottoms and trying not to lose my children in public, nothing warmed the cockles of my heart more than curling up with my kids on the sofa to read Green Eggs and Ham. The first few pages were easy enough to memorize. &amp;quot;I am Sam!&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;d start energetically. &amp;quot;Sam I am!&amp;quot; Cakewalk. But after those first pages, it got dicey. There was a world of difference between &amp;quot;box&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;fox,&amp;quot; and the kids hung on every word. The same woman who&amp;#039;d written her master&amp;#039;s thesis on Virginia Woolf now stared dumbly at a four-letter word beginning with the letter &amp;quot;b.&amp;quot; My main strategy was to stall by stretching out the beginning sound of a word until I could figure out what the second half amounted to. Consequently, my kids probably think words like &amp;quot;here&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;there&amp;quot; have four syllables each. &amp;quot; &amp;#039;And I would eat them on a bo-booo \u2014 &amp;#039; &amp;quot; I knew there were two more letters to complete that word, but what were they? Looked like a &amp;quot;u,&amp;quot; maybe. Then an &amp;quot;l&amp;quot;? I felt like I was failing my high school eye exam all over again. No, couldn&amp;#039;t be &amp;quot;ul&amp;quot;; &amp;quot;boul&amp;quot; is not a word, even in Seussland. Wait, maybe it&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;wl,&amp;quot; I thought. That makes sense. Yes! Got it!  &amp;quot; &amp;#039;And I would eat them on a bowl&amp;#039;!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;No, Mommy!&amp;quot; Lorenzo piped up. &amp;quot;Not &amp;#039;on a bowl&amp;#039;! &amp;#039;On a boat&amp;#039;!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s right! Good listening!&amp;quot; I cheered. At least I was honing my child&amp;#039;s pre-reading skills. &amp;quot;OK, &amp;#039;And I would eat them on a boat, and I would eat them with a coat.&amp;#039; &amp;quot; &amp;quot;Mommy!&amp;quot; shrieked Lorenzo, giggling madly. &amp;quot;Not &amp;#039;coat&amp;#039;! &amp;#039;Goat&amp;#039;!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Oh, you&amp;#039;re too smart! Soon you&amp;#039;ll be reading this to me!&amp;quot; The sooner, the better, I added silently.  &amp;quot;When do these kids learn to read, anyway?&amp;quot; I asked David later. &amp;quot;Let&amp;#039;s move that up the priority list.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Get a magnifier,&amp;quot; he suggested for the umpteenth time. &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re so much trouble,&amp;quot; I protested. &amp;quot;They make me nauseous. They&amp;#039;re expensive.&amp;quot; The truth was, I&amp;#039;d tried the kind they sell by the register at pharmacies, and it had hardly helped at all, certainly not enough to compensate for the trouble of locating it in the epic mess of my apartment and the sting of admitting that I needed one. Eventually I&amp;#039;d need a serious, industrial-strength magnifier, but not yet. I wasn&amp;#039;t that bad off yet. The curious thing about living with a degenerative disease is that the progression never feels gradual, even though all the medical evidence proves otherwise. I know my eyesight is eroding \u2014 faster in some months than in others, but for the most part slowly and steadily. But that&amp;#039;s not the way I experience the loss. The image I see doesn&amp;#039;t gradually get fuzzier and fuzzier like when you adjust the focus on a manual camera; the aperture doesn&amp;#039;t slowly close in tighter and tighter. From my perspective, my vision holds steady, the disease seemingly paused, until suddenly it takes a giant leap forward, like Pac-Man has bitten a huge chunk out of it. When that happens, suddenly I can&amp;#039;t do something I could do the day before. One day I can read the demarcations on an Infants&amp;#039; Motrin measuring cup and the next day I can&amp;#039;t. One day I can put eyeliner on straight and the next day I can&amp;#039;t. I perceive the loss of my vision through the loss of things I&amp;#039;m able to do, and that loss, though years in the making, doesn&amp;#039;t feel gentle. It is shocking, cruel, like a fast jab to the solar plexus. I am never prepared. So when I received an invitation to a birthday party for my friend Vivian, I grumbled, but I didn&amp;#039;t say, &amp;quot;No f\u2014king way.&amp;quot; I was nervous about going, but I thought I could manage. One of the very best things about having young children, besides the heart-exploding love, is the fact that you have a get-out-of-jail-free card for most social events for at least two years. The excuse was especially valuable to me because, being night-blind, I sometimes forget that not everyone thinks scheduling an event for nighttime sucks raw sewage. But when Rosa turned 3, my get-out-of-jail-free card expired. I had kids now, not babies, and there was no good reason I couldn&amp;#039;t leave them with their daddy. Except that I wanted their daddy to come with me \u2014 and we both knew it wasn&amp;#039;t just his charming company I wanted. After years of practice, David had learned exactly how to help me navigate in the dark, and even more important, he&amp;#039;d learned to do it so surreptitiously that no one would notice. A few close friends, including Viv, knew about my vision problems, but we&amp;#039;d barely ever discussed it since the diagnosis, and I hadn&amp;#039;t mentioned that in the past 12 years, things had, er, deteriorated a bit. David was the safety pin holding my shoddy nightlife together. But David hadn&amp;#039;t enjoyed his position as my seeing-eye guy. The hermit in him loathed being an escort and having to make small talk, and the Honest Abe in him hated the cover-up. More than once, he&amp;#039;d pointed out that as long as I refused to come out of the disability closet, he was forced to be my &amp;quot;beard.&amp;quot; So, though it made my life easier to have him on my arm, whenever possible I tried to go it alone. Which was what I decided to do for Viv&amp;#039;s 33rd birthday, despite the fact that none of the event&amp;#039;s details boded well for my success. The party started at 9 P.M., way after the forgiving window of dusk. And the venue was a new hot spot in the West Village, in Manhattan \u2014 not only was it unfamiliar to me, but I knew it would also be dim, because if there&amp;#039;s one thing you can count on, it&amp;#039;s that the hipper the bar, the darker it is. But after a day of potty training and volunteering at kindergarten recess, I decided I deserved a night of empty talk and overpriced cocktails. You only live once. I dusted off my dangly earrings and spent a good 20 minutes applying makeup in a magnifying mirror. I put on heels \u2014 I might break an ankle, I figured, but I wouldn&amp;#039;t be holding a baby, so it&amp;#039;d be OK. I was back in the game. I didn&amp;#039;t stumble or bump into anyone on the subway ride over. I managed to make out the street signs and locate the bar without too much trouble, and I was only a half hour late, which by my clock is pretty much on time. But as I strutted toward the bar&amp;#039;s glass front door, my optimism faltered: The place wasn&amp;#039;t just dim, but a kind of deep, unforgiving dark I associate with Hades or the countryside. Unbelievable, just unbelievable, I fumed. Isn&amp;#039;t there some kind of legislation mandating a certain amount of illumination in a commercial establishment?  It was time to strategize. Maybe Vivian would be standing by the door to receive guests. Once I was inside the heavy glass door, it was even darker than I&amp;#039;d anticipated; the birthday girl must be circulating, I deduced, because I couldn&amp;#039;t hear her voice exclaiming, &amp;quot;There you are! Get your ass over here!&amp;quot; I thought maybe I&amp;#039;d head for the bar and order a drink and wait for Viv to pass by \u2014 if I could make out where the bar was. Then the door opened behind me and a fresh group of hipsters lurched in and pushed me deeper into the throng. Panic percolated inside me. There was no way to stay put; I&amp;#039;d be unable to find the door or the bar. Plenty of times in the past I&amp;#039;d had to pretend I was drunk to explain why I couldn&amp;#039;t find the door that was right next to me. I speed-dialed Viv&amp;#039;s cell phone, which went directly to voice mail. I didn&amp;#039;t leave a message. What would I say \u2014 &amp;quot;Hi, Viv. You probably don&amp;#039;t remember, but I mentioned in passing that I was going blind, and I know I&amp;#039;ve never talked about it since, but now, actually, I really am pretty blind, so please come find me before I stop breathing. Hurry&amp;quot;? I dialed her number again, hoping I&amp;#039;d at least hear a phone ring nearby and could home in on the sound. No dice. To make matters worse, as I slipped the phone back in my pocket, my elbow hit the elbow of a woman next to me. Instantly, she exclaimed what most people say when I&amp;#039;ve knocked their drink all over their dry-clean\u2013only attire: &amp;quot;What the \u2014 ?&amp;quot; As she muttered curses, I counter-muttered, &amp;quot;Sorry, sorry, sorry.&amp;quot; My nervous system is set up in such a way that if I utter the word &amp;quot;sorry&amp;quot; more than three times within a 10-second interval, it activates my &amp;quot;abort mission&amp;quot; reflex and I instinctively begin to back away. In this case, backing away prompted a wave of drink splashing such that all around me were muttered expletives, causing me to continue my incessant offer of apology to the bar at large. When my back hit cold glass, I slipped out the door and ran to the taxi just pulling through the intersection: my getaway car. I managed to tell the driver my address before I started bawling. I was still sobbing as I walked into the apartment, where David had only just put the kids to bed. &amp;quot;What are you doing back here?&amp;quot; he asked. I could see that he was disappointed not to have the night to himself to watch zombie movies. I blubbered out the story while he sat there getting sad, then angry, then mobilized to attack the problem. Trouble is, when I&amp;#039;m truly sad, I don&amp;#039;t want to solve anything; I just want him to watch me cry and feel really, really, really sorry for me. &amp;quot;Next time, just tell Vivian that you can&amp;#039;t see in the dark, and she&amp;#039;ll wait by the door.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I can&amp;#039;t,&amp;quot; I said. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s humiliating.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Of course you can,&amp;quot; he pressed. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re making your situation worse.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;You don&amp;#039;t understand.&amp;quot; He sighed: &amp;quot;I know.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I tried so hard,&amp;quot; I sobbed. David was quiet. I knew I was breaking his heart, but the need to unload my sadness was too great. Someone had to know what was going on, and he&amp;#039;d ensured that he would be that person the day he&amp;#039;d signed on for better or worse. &amp;quot;I tried so hard to stop it from happening, but I can&amp;#039;t anymore,&amp;quot; I said in a rush. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve been defeated.&amp;quot; It wasn&amp;#039;t about the party; that was just the proverbial last straw. My blindness had come. Despite my praying and protesting and pretending, it had come. And though the idea of it had scared me at 19, back then all I&amp;#039;d had to lose was what I didn&amp;#039;t have yet. At 32, I had everything to lose. I&amp;#039;d been given two children who brought joy and meaning into my life with two radiant futures before them \u2014 futures I wanted to see, damn it.  I wanted to take my daughter shopping for a prom dress and keep her from buying something too short or too low-cut, and I wanted to check out the shady character who was her date and shoot him a cold, crazy look that said, If you hurt my baby, I&amp;#039;ll slice your &amp;#039;nads off. I wanted to see if my son&amp;#039;s eyes would change from that bright cerulean shade and if he&amp;#039;d get acne or an Adam&amp;#039;s apple; I wanted to check his math homework. I wanted to watch the kids from the bleachers when they played basketball or chess or did synchronized swimming, and to be able to cheer embarrassing things like &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s how you get &amp;#039;er done, son!&amp;quot; at the right moments. I wanted to straighten my son&amp;#039;s tie while he waited at the altar, and to see my daughter when she became a mother herself and tell her that the baby looked just like her. I wasn&amp;#039;t going to see those things. And it wasn&amp;#039;t fair. And there was nothing I could do to change it. So I sat on the couch and choked on my bitter pill for a long time. And then, at long last, I cried uncle. There was nothing I could do about the dying of the light, but there was something I could do about the shame and self-flagellation and anxiety I felt every day over the secret I was keeping. I had to go blind, but I didn&amp;#039;t have to lie about it. I was raising two children but still acting like a child myself, vain and obstinate. What kind of an example was I setting for them? Did I want them to hide essential parts of themselves that were less than perfect, or even just different, because of what other people might think? I imagined Rosa and Lorenzo, all grown up, crying on their couches, ashamed of who they were, and it was like a bucket of cold water thrown in my face. I could not pass this legacy on; it would be worse than passing on my disease. I needed help. And the aggravating thing about help is, you usually don&amp;#039;t get it unless you ask. I sat down and wrote Vivian an e-mail saying I&amp;#039;d come to the party, but I hadn&amp;#039;t been able to find her because it was dark and my eyes weren&amp;#039;t good in the dark anymore. Within a half hour, she&amp;#039;d written back, saying she hadn&amp;#039;t forgotten the news I&amp;#039;d shared with her 12 years earlier, that she&amp;#039;d often wanted to ask about it but had been nervous about broaching the subject because it seemed like I didn&amp;#039;t want to talk about it. She was sorry I&amp;#039;d had to go home; next time, she said, she&amp;#039;d wait for me outside. The worst thing, I&amp;#039;d always thought, would be to let go completely. Now I was beginning to think maybe the worst thing was being trapped in the place in between the worlds of the sighted and the blind. The next week I made an appointment with a low-vision ophthalmologist who worked with the New York State Commission for the Blind. &amp;quot;I think I&amp;#039;m legally blind,&amp;quot; I said to the receptionist, &amp;quot;and I need to know where to go from here.&amp;quot;  From Now I See You. Copyright \u00A9 2014 by Nicole C. Kear and reprinted by permission of St. Martin&amp;#039;s Press.  Nicole C. Kear is a writer, mother of three and proud alum of the San Francisco School of Circus Arts. She lives in Brooklyn with her family. Watch the book&amp;#039;s hilarious trailer:      Photos: Courtesy of the Kear Family "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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