When our guest this week was a child, she’d follow a string her parents had strung up for her, tied to poles on the road between her home and that of her grandmother. She was encouraged to walk the route, but it wasn’t until later that she saw the value in the mobility cane in lieu of one.

This week on Outlook we speak with star athlete Janet Erikson who competed in the Geilo 1980 Paralympic Winter Games.

Skiing and cross country in her mainstream high school, but Janet had grown up in rural Manitoba until the CNIB visited to offer guidance and the family moved out west so she could attend Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind which closed over 25 years ago.

This week we talk of her somewhat sheltered childhood as the baby of the family, about the shock of attending a residential school for blind and deaf children away from her loved ones and community, and we hear how she has taken back her own life and shown that blindness can be empowering rather than demoralizing.

We can all do with a large dose of Erikson’s optimism today. With the years of experience she’s had. We, here on Outlook, are grateful to guests like her, for the sharing of her story with us.