Conversation with Haben Girma, Re-post from AFB American Foundation for the Blind. Haben is a disability rights lawyer, author and speaker, who gained a Harvard law degree despite blindness and deafness. In this interview she speaks of the necessity of building a team of friends. I have paired this interview with the Joe Buizon interview because she models all the qualities he talks about.
This is inspiring. I will encourage my husband to be to pursue his dreams
I will stand by him and others who will need to be motivated.
Hi Blessing, What a lovely first name you have! Yes it is very important to stand by your husband-to-be, to support him in understanding and accepting this great loss and believing in your love for him. It is hard work! It takes grit and perseverance and you will have understood from Haben’s interview. Did you notice that both she and Joe Buizon in the previous blogpost highly recommend building what Haben calls a team of friends and he calls a cohort of others who also live with blindness – probably in your fiancé’s situation the hardest thing will be making the decision to reach out to other men and women in the same position. Your love will be the backbone but you can’t do it for him. All good wishes, Hannah
Hello Blessing, The really hard thing for you as an energetic thoughtful woman is to both back up your fiancé in everyting he decides to do for himself, providing support but not pushing. At the same time you need to model what you mean in your own life – finding the job that as a woman you have to push through prejudice to get etc. Your modelling perseverance, positive attitude and determination is likely to assist him more than too much talk about what he ought to do – ask any blind person and you will find that coming through the trauma and finding your identity and strength of purpose again takes years. All good wishes to you both, Hannah