Finding My Calling
Donna Hill's Own Account of her Struggle with Blindness, Breast Cancer & More...
How an 11-Year-Old Girl Opened the Door
Donna Hill - Contemporary singer/song writer
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Imagine being born with a degenerative eye disease which no one understands. It’s the 50’s, and blind Americans don’t have the rights or social standing they do today – limited as that is. You’re mainstreamed in public school, before mainstreaming was common. No one wants you around. Bullying is a regular part of your life. Adults look the other way. Throughout high school, you run to the bathroom several times each morning before home room to be sick. But, you’re smart and creative.
Since age four, you’ve felt that you’re supposed to do something important involving music. How is that going to happen when you are laughed at every time you open your mouth or even show up at the bus stop?
It did happen, though. I am now 58 and semi-retired from a thirty year career as a singer/songwriter and motivational speaker. I have three albums, I’m currently working on a novel and I volunteer as a publicist for the nonprofit Performing Arts Division of the National Federation of the Blind (PAD,NFB), which assists blind performers through scholarships, subsidies, mentoring and peer support www.padnfb.org
I speak, sing and write about the realities of being blind in America. I also use my talents to promote breast self-exam; I’m a two-time survivor and I found both tumors myself despite negative mammograms.
How did it happen? How did I get beyond having my voice crack, my knees shake and my stomach twist in knots? It happened slowly, with many set-backs. One incident, however, stands out as a major leap forward.
When my worsening vision put a stop to five years of piano lessons, I taught myself guitar. At fourteen, I began writing songs. I tried to perform in public several times in college, but anxiety was winning. After college (I majored in English lit), I trained with my first guide dog at the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind (Smithtown, NY). Having a guide dog enabled me to travel without fear. A fellow student introduced me to Braille; upon returning home, I taught myself this valuable skill.
After two years of unemployment, I moved to Philadelphia to take a job as a welfare caseworker. Six months into my new job, I found myself on the wrong end of a knife wielded by one of the agency’s clients. Though I was able to get away and help the police find and convict the man who assaulted me, the terror of that incident plagued me and made returning to work a nightmare.
Ultimately, I left to pursue my dreams of supporting myself as a musician. No one was interested in promoting me or hiring me so I decided to work as a street singer in Philadelphia’s Suburban Station, a center city terminal for the commuter railroad. I auditioned for and received a license to perform at Penn’s Landing on the Delaware River. One weekend during a festival along the river, an eleven-year-old girl named Dessa Harts came up to me with her mother. We talked for a while and then she asked, “Would you come to my school and sing for us and tell my friends about your guide dog?”
I did. Going back to an elementary school was difficult for me at first. Not only did it bring back bad memories, but I was horrible at speaking in public. Street-singing had helped by giving me an opportunity to casually chat with strangers on a regular basis, but preparing something like a speech? I decided what I wanted to say and wrote a few age-appropriate songs. I was a slow Braille reader, so note cards were out. I figured that talking off-the-cuff and occasionally asking the kids questions would work better than reciting a speech from memory. I also decided to have a question and answer period. That way, if I forgot something important, I would probably have a chance to mention it in the Q & A.
The kids were riveted and seemed genuinely interested. After the presentation to the entire school, many teachers came up to me thanking me for the program and encouraging me to do more. Their enthusiasm for what I had to offer and the respect they had for the way I interacted with the children was one of the most validating experiences of my life. I remember standing on stage with a half dozen teachers after the kids left the auditorium feeling like I was floating on a warm, safe sunbeam. Within a year I was performing in schools all around the Philadelphia area. I had references from the principals of public, private, Quaker and Catholic schools for programs specifically targeted to all age groups from kindergarten to high school. Each had original music about issues from guide dogs and American history to success and keeping your dreams alive. I was getting paid and often re hired. I was soon attracting the attention of the local press and recording my first album.
Nowadays, I understand how the stigma of being blind holds us all back. Blindness is different than other minorities. Men don’t generally wake up as women, whites don’t just go black, but that is exactly what happens in most cases of blindness. Most blind people grew up sighted. As sighted people, they form their views about what blindness means from society’s vast reservoir of fear and misunderstanding. Then, when they lose their sight, they become victims of their own prejudice. Many rehabilitation counselors have told me that the biggest obstacle that newly blinded adults face is overcoming their belief that blindness consigns a person to a life of dependence, inactivity and uselessness.
Recently, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) released its projections that diabetes-related blindness among working-age Americans will triple by 2050. In the U.S., over two-thirds of working-age blind people are unemployed. Nonetheless, there are blind lawyers, engineers, mechanics, teachers, doctors and so on. I believe with all my heart that the reason so few blind people succeed comes down to social attitudes, and that changing those attitudes will be good for everyone.
Other minorities have benefited from a strong media presence. There are very few blind people in the public eye, however, and virtually no blind women. When I ask people to name a famous blind woman, most mention Helen Keller, who died over fifty years ago.
Changing social attitudes is going to take a new generation of blind entertainers, young talented and attractive blind people who win the hearts of the nation. My work with the Performing Arts Division is to find and support those young people and help them reach their performing arts goals. As they succeed, the public will begin to look at blind people as equals; capable of contributing to society. This will bring opportunities to those of us who are blind, and will help newly blinded people transition from living productive lives as sighted people to living productive lives without sight.
I think back upon what I knew when I was four years old, that I was meant to do something important and it would have something to do with music. Now, however, as I keep plugging away, trying to get publicity and funding for PAD, I also know that I have found my calling.
You can click here to hear clips from
The Last Straw:
Email Donna here
