There is much anticipated joy for the holiday season. This is the time of year we sit around the table with loved ones, stuff ourselves with turkey and dressing and pumpkin pie, and talk about the things we are thankful for.

I sat down at my table just the other day with a fascinating lady who had quite the story of thanksgiving to tell. She very kindly shared her story with me while we also chatted about holiday plans and traditions.

Debby Dyess lives in Brownwood with her husband, and she wears many hats. She works from home as a freelance writer and illustrator and is also the Children’s Assistant Minister at Southside Baptist Church. There, she puts on puppet shows for the children every week using scripts she writes herself. And, get this… she’s also an amateur ventriloquist. How cool is that? 

When you see Debby, you see a confident, smiling and happy person who achieves big goals. What you don’t see is that Debby is also legally blind. And because she tends not to use the type of walking canes that are typically used by those who are visually impaired, you really can’t tell. 

“You think I’m looking at you right now, but I can’t see you,” said Debby, as we talked with one another. She was sitting across the table from me.

When Debby was just 18 years old, and in her second year of college studying commercial art, she went to a vision doctor because she was having trouble seeing.

“I went because I was having trouble sight reading my music,” she said. 

There, Debby got life-altering news. She was diagnosed with Stargardt Macular Degeneration. Stargardt’s is a genetic vision disorder that causes progressive vision loss. 

Debby was told she would be completely blind by the time she was 25 years old. Obviously, she was devastated when she got her diagnosis. She had ambitions of becoming a commercial artist and a photographer, but she needed her vision for that career path.

One of the most valuable aspects in her life had been taken away from her. The pain of losing something so valuable, that thing which allowed her to create an outlet to express herself, coupled with mourning from very recently losing her mother two months prior, brought intense feelings of anger.

“I went home and I sold my camera and I threw away all of my canvases and paints and pastels and just got rid of everything,” said Debby. “That was my reaction. I just decided that if I can’t do it the way I want to, then I’ll never do it again. I would’ve loved to have been a photographer and a commercial artist. I just would’ve loved that. It evidently wasn’t what I was supposed to be. I think to myself sometimes, I missed out on that. But if I’d have gotten that, I’d be missing out on this.” 

Debby shifted career paths when she got her diagnosis and graduated with a degree in special education and education for the visually impaired. Her diagnosis changed her career path, but deep down she still longed to be an artist, and at heart she always was, and still is today.

“I married a really great guy,” said Debby. “One day he just pulled into Michael’s. When I asked what we were doing there, He said ‘just because you can’t do it commercially, doesn’t mean you can’t do it at all.’ He hauled me in and started putting stuff in the basket so I could sketch and paint again.”

Debby did start painting and drawing again, and she’s been unstoppable ever since. She’s even gotten into digital art, and has been digitally re-creating pieces she originally drew by hand.

You may be wondering how Debby can illustrate if she can’t see the page. Although she is considered legally blind, she can still see some things. To explain to what extent she can see and to make it more understandable, Debby explained it this way. Whereas normal vision is considered 20/20, her vision is considered 20/2300, which means she can see from 20 feet what the average person can see from 2300 feet.

“I don’t believe anyone can see anything from 2300 feet,” she stated.

Debby still sees very little, and seeing anything is a huge effort. What she does see, she sees as outlines and shapes.

“I’m very thankful to have the vision that I do have,” said Debby. “l have to figure out new ways to get what I want. Sometimes I figure it out and sometimes I don’t.”

Debby’s family has been through a lot over the years. You wouldn’t know it just by chatting with her. She’s so upbeat and positive and has a deep love for the Lord. She seems to be the type of person who always has a song in her heart.

Within the past few years, another life-altering event changed the course of Debby’s path once again. In 2017 her husband was diagnosed with cancer.

“He required so much care when he was first diagnosed,” said Debby. “He was just too sick. When he had cancer treatment, it was life-changing for both of us.”

They were living in Brownwood at the time and forced to move to Fort Worth where he would be receiving his treatments until the middle of July. The cancer center would only pay for them to stay there Sunday through Thursdays, so they either had to find a way to get back to Brownwood on the weekends, or somehow find the money to get a place to stay.

Debby’s daughter Meagan was graduating from the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth with her masters as a Physician Assistant at the same time her father was diagnosed. Amanda, a family friend who was also graduating, offered her apartment to them at no cost, asking that they only pay utilities. Her lease wasn’t up until the end of July, and she wasn’t going to be staying there. With Debby not being able to drive and Steve being too sick to, having this apartment appear for them was an answer to their prayers.

“She said she was going to have to pay the rent anyway, and she left everything. And when I say everything, I mean she left her spices, she left her dishes and the soap and the TV. Who does something like that, right?” said Debby. “We were just given a place to live for the two and a half months we were there. It was such a God moment.”

By the grace of God, Steve made it through treatment and recovered. Then, that same year he had two heart attacks in November, stents put in that December, and was also diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

Since her husband has been ill, Debby hasn’t done as much freelancing. She mainly just illustrates for an organization now out of Orlando, Florida called ‘Reaching New Horizons for Autism’ that she’s been illustrating for since 2017.

Debby’s done a lot of work that she’s been proud of over the years. She’s done ghostwriting and written for several educational websites. She’s also written for a textbook company called ‘Edugate’ out of Cairo. She recently published a series with Little Pearl Books called ‘Mac Pugersky Adventures.’ At one point, for 18 months, she was a coordinator and writer for an e-magazine called ‘Tween Girls’ for 9-12 year olds. There were writers from all over the United States who wrote for the magazine, and from South Africa and Ireland, as well. The magazine had a readership from Japan to Italy and Canada to Brazil.

“There’s a lot of them out there,” said Debby, in reference to the magazine.

But now she’s working on several of her own projects. She used to put her work on the back burner to do freelancing.

Currently, she’s working on a book called ‘Looking for Orion’ that touches on the ideology that Orion is Christ. She’s also working on multiple other projects, including a children’s book called ‘Once Upon a Dog’ about a child who has autism and is afraid of dogs.

Debby has written a variety of different books and pieces, but one thing about her writing has been unchanging. When she’s writing, she tends to always throw something in that will “honor God.”

As an example, Debby told me about a story she wrote to enter into a contest one year for Christmas. “It wasn’t necessarily a Christian story,” she said. She added a paragraph where there were carolers singing about the birth of Christ. It’s how she shows God her honor and appreciation.

“That’s just so important to me,” said Debby. “I feel like that’s my tag. I want people to know that’s who I am.”

When I asked her why she doesn’t let her condition stop her or slow her down, she said, “I have four children and this is a genetic disease. I think I feel like if I give in to it or let it decide what I can and can’t do, I’d be setting that example for my kids in case one of them wound up getting this genetic anomaly.”

Even though Debby has already achieved so many big goals, she continues to keep creating more goals for herself. But what’s even more important to her is that she stays humble and puts God first in her life. And she believes it’s for that very reason He has given her everything she has been given, and it’s because of Him and His grace that she has been able to achieve so much.

“My husband is a disabled veteran and was told he would be in a wheelchair by the time he was 50. He’s 64, has had cancer, heart attacks, and Parkinson’s disease and goes to work with my son every single morning. I have been blessed to be surrounded by people who push hard. My mom and dad were like that. I don’t know that we were ever given the option to just stop,” said Debby.

When I asked her what she was most thankful for, she said, “the honest answer is my salvation. God has saved me from being who I could’ve been without Him. But I am also so grateful to be surrounded by an incredible group of encouragers, the good kind of pushers, you know. And by people who really think I’m cool, when the truth is I’m just a total nerd.”

{Story by Kelly Congdon, Special Contributor to BrownwoodNews.com}