Determined to get back up
“My life went from being in a position of power to being powerless.” - Heather
Heather grew up on a chicken farm outside of Athens, Georgia. She worked the farm till she was 17 years old. Her parents believed if its something you can do for yourself why hire it done. She developed her hard work ethic from this mindset. Heather is the oldest of 4 children, born into a very tight knit family. They are the backbone to her strength and determination.
Heather went to private school up till 8th grade and then she was homeschooled till she graduated. She was able to graduate a year early as she soared academically. She grew up in a small town and very involved in her church. She had the all-American life full of hopes and dreams. In her high school civics class is where her dreams began to take shape. She fell in love with political science and decided that would be her path to her degree. Heather wanted to work in politics. Her third year in college she got an internship to the District Attorney’s Office and her plans changed. She fell in love with everything about that office and the work of a prosecutor. She worked her last two years of college as a legal secretary for the DA’s office. Life took a turn from plans of politics to working as a prosecutor.
Heather went on to law school in Florida where they had an International Law program with hopes she could study abroad. She studied a semester at the University of Amsterdam in International Criminal Law. She helped with a war crime criminal trial and found it exhilarating. She traveled to the Caribbean as well doing oral arguments in the Caribbean Court of Justice. She found her niche.
As she was about to embark on her new career life took another detour. Heather found out she had diabetes and cancer at the same time. Quite the blow yet she was determined not to let it take her down. She went through 8 months of treatment that put her cancer in remission. Finally, Heather had the green light to go to work and begin the career of her dreams.
Heather was hired as an assistant district attorney in Cleveland, TN in the 10th Judicial District, a rural area north of Chattanooga. She got married and settled down into her new life as a prosecutor. Tragedy struck just 24 days after her wedding when her husband passed away from cancer. Brokenhearted she threw herself into her career and neglected her health as a diabetic. Two years of unhealthy habits and tragedy struck again. Heather lost her vision in 2018 from diabetes. Life took another big turn leaving her blind.
Heather made one of the toughest decisions of her life. She decided to walk away from practicing law as a prosecutor. She didn’t feel she could ethically uphold the standards of that position with her visual impairment. She went back home to live with her parents, gave up her independence that she held so dear and fell into a depression. She was disappointed in herself for not taking better care of herself. Although it was tough, she continued to push herself not to give up. She would listen to videos on YouTube on how to work a cell phone and how to walk with a cane. Her dad made her a special cane and she started to learn mobility and how to navigate in the environment she was in. The scrapes and bruises from falling, running into things and tripping over them were her reminders of the difficult season she was in, yet she was determined to get back up and try again. She started to pursue some resources, worked on learning Braille all while finding ways she could help on the farm. She was doing everything she knew to do to help herself become independent again. She went from being in a position of power to powerless. This was overwhelming for her to comprehend.
It took two and a half years to move through the emotions and the adjustments to her new life as a blind person. Even though this was the toughest time in her life it also was building her strength and determination. She was now ready to pursue whatever resources were available to her to help her become independent and get back to living again. That is when she decided she would come to WSB. She did her research and found our program to be what she was looking for. Her family got her through the toughest of times, but she knew she had to move away to truly find independence.
She came in 2021 sailed through the prevocational program learning all the basic life skills necessary to hold a career and live on her own. Initially she thought she would get all the life skills training and then go back into law just not as a prosecutor. When she was in the Assistive Technology class, she learned to send an email on her own for the very first time. That was “her aha moment” she says. She fell in love with Assistive Technology and decided to stay on and go into the Assistive Technology Instructor (ATI) training program. Heather has a heart of a teacher. She loves watching others experience their aha moment like she did when they accomplish a task on their own for the first time. She excelled in that training program, graduated and is now interning as an ATI at WSB.
Once she finishes her internship, we are proud to announce she will be staying on with us as a full-time Assistive Technology Instructor. She just moved into her first apartment off campus and is achieving her goal of independence that just four years ago seemed impossible. Now she feels her life has great meaning as she is teaching students from all over Arkansas, our Nation, and the World to be instructors themselves and go back to their areas and duplicate the training for others. The ripples of influence she is having are expansive, she feels so honored this is what she gets to do. She says, “I get to see where my students come from and where they are going, I am learning just as much from them as they are learning from me”. She has experienced lots of twists and turns through life that has led her to WSB. While her dreams didn’t work out initially like she planned, the twists and turns, tragedies and loss have brought her to where she is now. She has found independence in a new way, visually impaired. Through determination and strength, she helps others find theirs.