The Great Elephant Ride Read online

  The Great Elephant Ride

  It is finally feeling like spring in Sydney, Nova Scotia. I have just arrived home from my morning training run on a track behind the local high school. The sun has started to gain in strength and the early morning rays were absorbed by my black Capris as I circled the track trying to shave seconds of my 800-meter time. I will be running in the United States National Championship in Florida in June of this year, the first step towards my goal of running in the 2012 Olympics.

  I love to run, in spite of the challenges of being blind, but running has not always been my sport. I was a late bloomer. Bicycle racing had been my passion until my vision deteriorated to the point where the sport became dangerous. I had always been an athlete and loved competition. When I lost my sight in my early twenties, I thought my days of competition were over. As a way of coping with not being able to cycle any more, I sought therapy. My chosen form of therapy was called “Chicken Wing” therapy. I liked it. It worked well for me. Each time I felt bad about myself I would each some chicken wings. For years, I subscribed to “Chicken Wing Therapy” and, in its own way, it worked. I fretted less and less about not being able to cycle. Chicken Wing Therapy, however, had a side effect: weight gain that pummeled my self-esteem, which in turn would require more Chicken Wing Therapy. I repeated this cycle for several years, until I managed to put on more than one hundred pounds and earned the title of obese which is why I turned to running. Running was not a replacement for cycling, but was a way to lose the weight I had gained.

  Shortly before I turned 40, I had a life changing moment. I looked in the mirror and I was not happy with who was looking back at me. I saw a successful business owner, software engineer, a published writer, a philanthropist, and inventor, a former marine, a parent, and an unhappy person. Though never truly been happy with my reflection, this time I wanted to change dramatically.

  There comes a time in life where we take stock of who we are. I think the age of 40 is an age where we also recognize our mortality. Half my life was gone and I still could not look in the mirror and be happy with who I was in spite of the many reasons I had to be happy. For me, discontent came from a deeper source.

  My life had not gone as planned, but few people’s lives do. Losing my vision was but one of several major challenges I have faced that have shaped my life and changed the direction of my career multiple times. In retrospect, most of those turns led to better paths. It was my vision loss that set me on a career path that eventually led to developing the technology that is now the core of my business.

  I am Stephanie Anne Timmer, a 43-year-old blind woman who was born December 29, 2009. When meeting me for the first time, people are often surprised to learn that I am legally blind—I have many ways to hide my blindness. I cannot, for example, read menus so when I eat out I usually eat at a place where I already know what is available or listen to the people who are in front of me as they order. Vegetables are one of my main foods. Shopping for them is pretty easy because there is a world of difference in how carrots and lettuce feel. Boxed foods, however, can be a bit tougher and occasionally, I will get blue cheese dressing instead of ranch or mozzarella cheese instead of Italian. In addition, I have made peanut and pickle relish sandwiches because the pickle relish was in the same kind of jar as the jelly. However, what does not kill you just tastes funny. You do learn to smell everything before you eat it. Putting on makeup has always been a bit of a struggle when you can’t see. You have to go by touch, but even then I always manage to get some mascara or eye shadow on the side of my nose. It has become part of my trademark now because I consistently do it.

  I could carry my white cane to let people know that I am blind, and I do at times. However, people treat you differently when you have a disability. I have found life to be better when I hide my disability versus promoting it. If I did carry my white cane, I would not have to explain that I can’t read because people would recognize what the cane meant and would often help me without even being asked. I am, however, fiercely independent and do not want the attention the white cane brings. There are a lot of things I can do—but if I carry a white cane, people often treat me as though I can’t do anything. Hiding my blindness is second nature to me. It is easy and natural because I have grown up hiding an even darker secret.

  I think many people believe that going blind is one of the hardest things a person can have to learn to deal with and accept. From personal experience, it is not. Blindness has never gotten in the way of what I wanted to do in life. I may have had to learn how to do things another way, but I always found a way to do it. A friend remarked that he never saw me let blindness get me down. Sometimes it did get me down, but if you just broke your leg, would you care at that moment that you had a hangnail? A hangnail can hurt and be annoying, but compared to breaking a leg, it is not that significant. Being blind was like a hangnail for me. I grew up dealing with a much bigger issue than blindness, and when I was told I was going blind, it did not affect me much. It became just a part of life.

  If vision loss were my only challenge, my story would be like so many others. My deep, dark secret is that I am transgender. For me it and for many others, being transgender is much harder to deal with and accept than going blind. Suicide rate among blind individuals is actually below that of the average population, whereas the suicide rate amongst the transgender community is three times that of the average population. Many individuals have found death to be easier to accept that life as a transgender individual. I, however, am one of the lucky ones. I have completed the journey of self-discovery and acceptance. The journey was long and difficult, and the road is littered with lost souls and the corpses of those who did not make it.

  This is my journey:the Great Elephant Ride. I thought it was going to be a ride of a lifetime, but as it turned out, it was a ride to just the beginning of my life.

  The Elephant Ride: Childhood

  The elephant ride began November 29, 1966 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I was the fourth of eventually seven children. I was smack dab in the middle: I had two older sisters, two younger sisters, and one older and one younger brother. We lived in a very conservative area of West Michigan.

  My father was a carpenter and my mother for the most part was a stay-at-home mom. I never say my mother did not work; she was a stay-at-home mom, and took care of seven children, so she worked and worked plenty hard.

  The people who settled this area of West Michigan had a Dutch heritage, even naming one of the larger cities “Holland.” They are a tall and stubborn breed of people, both of which are Dutch traits; I inherited both of them. My father was a towering figure of 6’8” tall, with broad shoulders and big hands from doing manual labor all his life. His hands could cover your entire backside when you got a spanking as a child. I know because I earned a good many of them. I did inherit his height and eventually reached 6’1,” but I had very fine features. Even at my heaviest of nearly 300 pounds I still had to buy women’s watches because my wrists were too small for the men’s watchbands.

  It was an Old Dutch tradition for the sons to follow in their fathers, footsteps and learn their skills. My older brother was not great in school, but as a teenager picked up carpentry. He was a natural at it and eventually had his own contract business. Like my brother, I was supposed to follow in my father’s footsteps as well. I really tried at first, but I hated it; I was not any good at it. My father eventually encouraged me to look for a different occupation. He simply did this by never asking me to help him ever again.

  This was fine because I loved school and learning. I read continuously as long as I can remember, more often than not books about science or nature. My father’s reading was limited to the amount of time he sat on
his throne in the bathroom and consisted of either the daily paper or Reader’s Digest. As children, we would get into trouble if we removed the comics before we gave him the paper. He would know if you replaced today’s comics with yesterdays—you would get into more trouble for doing that than just removing them. He was not into any sports or really had any hobbies that I can recall. So my interaction and time with my father was very limited. Not that we fought or anything: we were just different creatures.

  It was not until I was a teenager that my mother worked outside of the house. Her first job—and only regular job—was working as a cook at local restaurant, the same restaurant I later got a job at. Until that point, she was a stay-at-home mom. She was never a soccer mom: we were never encouraged to participate in sports or after school activates. Her hobbies were limited to going to church, sewing, and gardening. I used to go out to the garden if I wanted to talk to her one on one. I did become an excellent cook and developed a love for flowers, but not gardening. There was little time for fun, because idle hands were the Devil’s playground. She read more than my father, but when she read, it was something that had some connection to their religion.

  We lived a solid lifestyle that did not change much. Mom would get up about 5:00 am, cook breakfast for my father, and pack his lunch. As he ate his breakfast, she would make the seven lunches for the children, then awaken us in a sequence so that we all had our turn at getting ready for school. Our lunches were always packed full of homemade foods and twice as much as we probably needed. This worked out well because it gave me an ample supply to trade with friends at school.

  Life at home followed a pattern that has not changed to this day. Monday through Friday you get up and go to school or work. You eat dinner at 5:30. Dinner has three things: vegetables, which are usually beans, corn, or peas. Every meal has to have meat that is limited to beef, chicken, or pork. Only on rare occasions is it fish. The potato in some form or flavor is always present. My father hates rice so that is never served, and the food is spiced using everything in the Dutch spice rack that consists of both salt and pepper.

  Saturday was chore day around the house. We all had them, but I had a few more than the others because I raised the animals. My father built a barn and I was allowed to raise chickens for the family. At one point I was allowed to get ducks. I put a small pool in the middle of the fenced-in area. Every time I would fill it with fresh water, they would play in it for the next several hours until it was so dirty that they would not go into it any more. To this day whenever I am depressed or hit a hard time in my life, I grab a loaf of bread and go find a pond somewhere and feed the ducks—they always make me smile.

  Sunday was not a weekend day; it was the Sabbath. Twice a day my parents would pack all nine of us in a station wagon and take us to church. Sermons were usually 90 minutes in length and sometimes longer. My parents went religiously, because if you did not go, people would talk about you. The nine of us filled an entire pew. The boys always sat on one end and the girls on the other with my parents in the middle. My mother would sit attentively and poke my father whenever she caught him sleeping. He would always jolt awake and instantly look to see if any one of us were sleeping. He would then not so nicely tap us in the back of head as if to punish us for his being caught sleeping. Once he did this to my brother who was nodding off and by luck tapped him in the back of head when it was moving forward in a nod. The tap added enough energy so that my brother’s head smacked the pew in front of him with a deadly thud. I then was smacked because instinctively I laughed in enjoyment of my brothers’ embarrassment.

  Sundays were not much fun; in fact, we actually were not allowed to have any fun. We could not play outdoors; we could not have friends over. About the only thing we were allowed to do is go for a walk, but if we were caught horsing, we would get in trouble. We got into the ritual of going to church, coming home for the big Sunday lunch, taking a nap, going back to church, coming home for a snack and going to bed. Every summer we would get to go camping for a week. It was the highlight of the summer, but even that had to be scheduled around church. If you wanted a week vacation, you could leave on Monday but you had to be back in time for church on Sunday. I got to the point where I resented Sundays. It felt as if I was wasting one-seventh of my life.

  That hard work ethic is something that my parents instilled into their children. Hard work was something that was promoted and highly respected by my Puritan parents. They took pride in their hard work and would not accept charity from anyone. People who were poor were poor because they were lazy and just needed to work harder. We were never rich by any standards, and during the downturn in the building trade in the early 70’s, my parents had to apply for food stamps to feed us. That I believe was one of the hardest things my parents had to deal with, until they found out one of their children was transgender.

  My parents were overall excellent parents, and with their highly religious background did what they believed to be right. I always had a roof over my head; I was well fed and never fell victim to their intolerant Puritan religion. They were not the most affectionate of parents, especially my father, but my needs were always met. I don’t fault them for not picking up on the clues that I was transgender, because I am sure that they did not even know of the word or much about it until I came out to them.

  Being the middle child left me in no man’s land, so to speak. When growing up, I soon found myself too old to want to play with my younger siblings, and I was not old enough for my older siblings. Even though I came from a big family, I really never had a sibling whom I was very close to. I got along with all my brothers and sisters, but I preferred to do things by myself. I would not consider myself a loner, nor an introvert; I loved talking and being with people, but growing up I really enjoyed my alone time.

  I think the thing that made my childhood was where we lived. I was able to get away and be myself. We lived in many places, but by the time I entered 3rd grade, we had moved to the place I would call my childhood. Our house sat in the middle of an 8-acre plot of land, which in back connected to a large cornfield. The side of the cornfield was a wooded area. This wooded area was my sanctuary I am not sure what I would have done without that area. The times I spent in the woods let me be myself. Once I left the cornfield and entered the “enchanted” forest, I became who ever I wanted. I could be a cheerleader, a princess, a bride, or just me!

  It was not always clear who me was. I knew I was different for as long as I can remember. I remember in kindergarten we had one of those all-day classrooms, and we had to take a nap in the afternoon. I always lay with my head in the opposite direction of all the other kids, thinking about stuff: what it would be like to have long hair or to wear a dress. I am not sure if I knew I was different at the time, but I did know what I really liked. I never played sports with any of the other kids unless I had to. I lived in and enjoyed my pretend world. It was not lonely— it is just where I felt the most comfortable.

  Things changed in the first grade. It was the start of a very difficult time in my academic life. I was diagnosed with what was called a lazy eye. The treatment at that time for a lazy eye was to put an eye patch over the good eye, the theory being that you would use the lazy eye more, thus strengthening it. They put a patch over my right eye, but my left eye had such poor vision that when I wore the patch I in essence was blind. I could not read anything without high-power magnifiers. Unfortunately, since it was very difficult for me to read, the school that I was at did not attempt to teach me how to read. In second grade when everyone else was learning to read, they put me in a “Study” house and I could basically do anything I wanted, so I played house. I was the mom.

  I did not learn to read, but at that point, it did not matter much to me, I also did not learn to write, either. The 3rd grade was another turning point for me. First, I no longer had to wear the patch over my eyes—that method of treatment did nothing to help me. However, it did give me a taste of what my life would be like when I ent
ered my thirties and did go blind. My parents could not afford to keep sending all their children to a private Gitmo Christian school, so they enrolled us into the local public school—I did have a guardian angel; I was being rescued from the indoctrination. My third grade teacher was awesome: Ms. Olson. She worked with me and put in extra time and sent home work sheets. My parents worked hard with me, mainly my mother, and soon I knew how to write all my letters in cursive. Next, she helped me with my multiplications and math. Fortunately, I was able to learn quickly and caught up with the rest of the class by the end of the 4th grade; by the time I was in 6th grade, I was doing 7th grade math. I went from hating school to loving to learn. I can honestly say I was passionate about learning. That is whom I owe my salvation to. If I did not have a Ms. Olson in my life, I am not sure where I would be today.

  The elementary school I went to connected to a city park. A large part of the area was a sports park with several ball diamonds and soccer fields. During the winter, the local fire department would flood the ball diamond and turn it into a skating rink. My family did not have a whole lot of extra money for those extra things so we learned to live with hand-me-downs. My next oldest sibling was a sister. By 4th grade I had outgrown my ice skates and so had my sister, so I got a pair of her “White” ice skates. Black skates were for boys and white for girls, but these were special skates: my sister had put handmade pompoms on them. They really look girlish—I loved them. I can still feel how the pompom bounced off the top of my foot; with every skate I was a figure skater, pretending that I wore a little skating skirt. I was quite a poor ice skater, being tall for my age and not having great muscle control, but that did not mater. I was a figure skater.

  My birthday fell in November, so instead of starting school when I was four, my parents waited one year so soon after I started school I turned six. I was at the older end of the class, which gave me the advantage of being a little bit bigger than my classmates. Size does matter when you are a boy, keeping me from being picked on. This gave me the freedom to do what I wanted without harassment or intimidation. I remained the tallest, until I got to junior high school when my classmates caught up or even passed me.