Synthesis Essay

Tommy Lasorda once said “The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man’s determination.” The story “Versabraille” by Bill Schermbrucker and the article “Blindly He Goes…Up” by Steve Rushin who don’t let their unseeing eyes stop them from accomplishing their goals. Erik has successfully climbed many mountains including the treacherous journey of Mount Everest and Jim lives an active life and had a “thriving physiotherapy practice”.  Uncle Jim and Erik share several of the same qualities while facing their challenges. Both are determined, optimistic and humorous.

Erik and Jim have both been able to do what they desire and being blind hasn’t stopped them. They are both are determined to conquer their goals. Erik who became entirely blind at age 13 “is a skydiver, a paraglider and a marathon runner” and “has climbed the Seven Summits”. Jim, who “cannot remember actually seeing things”, went into town by himself, when he was seven to buy his father Rum and Maple. He also would travel to “three separate hospitals” for his physiotherapy practice and one was “at least a mile from the train”. It may seem to some that they “managed all this without…apparent difficulty” but even people who can see perfectly fine would have trouble facing these challenges. It doesn’t mean Erik and Jim didn’t have difficulty, it means that they accomplished their goals because they were determined.

Neither Erik nor Jim let the fact that they are blind stop them from doing what they love and having a positive look on life. Jim doesn’t let his disability stop him; instead he uses it to stand up for what he believes in and finding ways to help the blind and “make them independent”. He is trying to move blind people away from using guide dogs because if one dies “it’s not easy to adapt to a new one” and many people “homebound now” because of it. He tries to help spread awareness by using his blindness to bring attention to a problem many people may face. Erik has “scaled the rock face of Yosemite’s El Capitan” and “the icefall of Polar Circus in the Canadian Rockies”. He didn’t let not being able to see stop him from climbing “the fiberglass Matterhorn at Disneyland” either or Everest. Both men continue being optimistic about life and remain perusing their dreams. 

Although both are blind, Erik and Jim both have a clever sense of humor. Before Erik went to climb Mount Everest the Sherpa’s didn’t believe he was blind and to prove to them he was he, he “pulled down his lower left eyelid” and his “prosthetic eye drop into his cupped hand”. It dropped “like an olive into a martini glass” and when we offered to remove his right eye but the head Sherpa said she believed him. Also when Erik was a schoolteacher he snatched a “crinkling note” from a student that was about to pass is. “He threatened to read it to the hushed class”. “The kids knew [he] was blind” but somehow figured he was able to read it. Jim as a child made his siblings jealous because when it was lights out he could continue reading while they had to put their books away and go to bed. They could hear him “chuckling away to himself” as he could “just go on reading”.  Both Erik and Jim find ways to keep their lives interesting and bring humor into them.

 Both Erik and Jim are determined in achieving their goals. They show the world that although life can be difficult if you are determined enough its possible to achieve your goals and make your dreams come true. Erik and Jim demonstrate that it is possible to achieve your goals even if you have a disability such as their unseeing eyes.