Going Blind

This post is dedicated to Dana Elcar (Pete Thorton in Macgyver)

If you can read this, then you are a very lucky person.  Or fortunate.  Or blessed.  Or whatever you name it.  How so?  The story below is the reason why.

I always amazed at the guy who play as Pete Thornton, Macgyver's boss in Phoenix Foundation, from the TV Series Macgyver (1985-1992).   Pete is the fatherly figure and definitely not the arrogant bossy type.  There's an authority aura around him, but yet we can feel his genuine and kind spirit in him.  I think Dana Elcar is the perfect match to play as Pete Thornton.

I searched more about Dana Elcar, since I only knew him as "Pete" from Macgyver.  I was curious to see if he played in other movies.  As it turns out, he did played in some other movies before, and regarded as one of the good actor of his time.  As Richard Dean Anderson said about him, "There were no bumpy roads with Dana."  Such a great co-worker too!

Unfortunately, during the 4 seasons of Macgyver in the making, he was diagnosed with glaucoma.
An illness which will eventually turn someone to blindness.  He reported to his producers that he was going to be blind, and his producers simply replied,"The fact that you are losing your eyesight does not mean you have forgotten how to act," Elcar recounted in a 1991 speech to the National Federation of the Blind.

Eventually he became blind.  But even after he lose his eyesight, he kept on acting.  Mainly on stage, at Santa Paula Theater Center.  He passed away in 2005.  I can imagine that about the last 10 years of his life was spent in blindness due to glaucoma.

Then here's what I'm thinking.  How can you live a life without the ability to see?  Yes you can still hear, taste, smell, touch.  But I think being blind also means that you will have to re-learn to live with a new condition.  To try to imagine color in a colorless reality.  To use your other senses more keenly.  To forget the world you knew so well and enter into a different dimension and adjust with it until you fully accept it and  let it become your new reality.

I think sometimes we take things too lightly and take it for granted.  Instead of truly appreciating of what we have, we become ignorant and only focusing on things that we thought is important.  Well how important is one imperfect surrounding in a selfie photo to a man who cannot see?

It's still amazing that there are a lot of blind people who possesses courageous spirits to continue moving on and actually become successful.  I think Dana Elcar is one of them too.  To continue living in a world that he loves, the acting world, till the end.  Stevie Wonder (musician) , Helen Keller (author), Louis Braille (inventor of Braille system - reading method for the blind), Andrea Bocelli (opera singer), Galileo Galilei (astronomer), and the list go on and on and on.

Suddenly our problems seem so petty.  Our trouble seems smaller.  We can still see!  If they don't let blindness in their way and even can contribute more to humanity, then we should not give up for whatever reason.  Human spirit is one of the strongest thing in the world.  So let's not loose hope!

If you can still see, you can still conquer whatever it is you're facing now.  Even if you can't see anymore, you can always learn the new skills and live your life to the fullest.

Thank you Dana for your contribution to the world. May you rest in peace. (He passed away June 6, 2005).