Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Sep. 4--DECATUR -- Gail McWilliams of Dallas, Texas, is an inspirational/motivational type person who sees life as funny.
But the fact is, she doesn't see, at least not in terms of being sighted.
The former Decatur resident said from her Dallas home, "I am not totally blind; I'm just beyond legally blind," she quipped.
"People will ask me, 'What do you see?'"
"Well, you've lost 10 pounds and your hair looks great today" is the frequent tongue-in-cheek response of the woman who sees without her eyes.
Now McWilliams has written a book, "Seeing Beyond," which is already in 26 countries and is being translated to Spanish.
Q: Tell Bookmark a bit about the person Gail McWilliams.
Gail McWilliams was told at age nine that she had juvenile diabetes. Somewhere between the ages of 13 and 15, doctors told her she'd never have children and one physician went so far as to predict she wouldn't live beyond age 30.
Now two decades past that age, McWilliams recalled her family moving from St. Louis, Mo., to Decatur in 1974. She didn't meet her husband, Tony, in Decatur but that's where they married nearly 30 years ago. He's is from Southern Illinois, though they met in Florida.
And while he pastored in Decatur and had a traveling ministry, they had a television show. And they also had five children, now between ages 27 and 10.
They moved to Dallas in 2000 but it was working in the heartland -- Central Illinois -- that groomed and educated them.
Q: Not having sight creates some unique situations. For example, how did you write, literally?
First, McWilliams said, it was not her intention to become an author.
"I never really wanted to write a book," she stressed. "But I got a lot of pressure from people to do it.
"People are looking for something to put their arms around."
So McWilliams tells her story, its ups downs, its joys sorrows, its fears and frequently, very frequently, its laughter.
To become an author, McWilliams did not use a ghost writer. She uses a special computer software program.
"What it does is every time I press a key, it tells me the letter."
And though she has heard what she wrote, "I literally wrote a book that I've never read yet.
"It has been beyond anything I could have dreamed. You normally don't live your life thinking, 'This is going to be a best seller.'"
And her writing continues. She and her husband are co-writing a book on the family and she is penning another solo.
Q: What advice would you give a sighted person?
"Visual people are so set upon the destination (that) they don't even see things along the way," said McWilliams. "You have one journey, one life. What will you do with it?
"My greatest joy is to challenge visual people about the way they see.
"My eyesight is temporarily impaired but my vision is keen."
No story about Gail McWilliams can leave out some stories illustrating her sense of humor because it always bubbles to the surface.
In her own words: "Humor is a gift. I see life as funny. Even the hard times have value."
An example: After a day of shopping and fun at Hickory Point Mall, she felt her daughters were becoming too rowdy. So she turned to lecture them, threatening them with cutting the day short and suggested they "Knock it off."
"They politely answered. From behind me."
And another: "When the girls were learning to drive, it didn't bother me. I never saw the tree either."
-----
Copyright (c) 2006, Herald & Review, Decatur, Ill.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
