What Can You Learn from Me Becoming Blind? Faith Through Hard Times, Family, and God's Plan

And I bring this up because, well, I was lucky enough to get to be featured on a podcast that I'm about to introduce you to that is called Learn from People Who've Lived It.

Now, you may have already heard my story before, and that's cool.

But before you say, Oh no, heard it, been there, let's turn to a new podcast.

Just hold your horses one second.

Because today I want you to listen to this interview on this podcast.

And I want you to listen to it with a different mindset.

Because I don't want you to listen to hear my story.

Instead, I want you to listen and try to figure out how my story can relate to your story.

How can the lessons that I've learned be a benefit to you?

Because my friend, going blind was horrible.

But I've learned that if I can use what I've been through to be a benefit to you, then I say it with all honesty.

It makes it all worth it.

And my hope, my prayer is that you'll hear something in today's interview that will make an impact on your life.

So, with that said, this is my interview on the podcast Learn from People Who've Lived It.

SPEAKER_05: Well, I want to welcome you to a very inspirational edition of Learn from People Who Lived It.

You're about to sit down with me, Dr.

David Liken, and a guy named Kevin Lowe, who is going to blow your mind.

His story is so incredible.

At 17 years old, he discovers he has a benign brain tumor, and when they remove the tumor, they also remove his ability to see.

No shapes, no shadows, just darkness.

But the way that Kevin has been able to step into the light is the thing I really want you to pay attention to today.

He's a religious guy, and so you're gonna hear us reference God and Jesus throughout this interview.

And there's one moment where I asked him if he ever was angry with God about this whole thing and listen to his answer.

SPEAKER_03: The thing is about anger, um, there were times when I'd be sobbing, when I would get angry with God, because no matter how hard I prayed, every morning I'd wake up and I'd open my eyes and I'd see the same thing I did when they were closed.

And all I wanted so bad was for God just to let me see again.

And a lot of times I remember even saying, God, just let me see nothing else but just my family.

I just want to be able to see them.

And it never, it never would come true.

And I would get angry with him, but it would never be for more than a minute.

Because I would always end by asking God for his forgiveness because I knew that I couldn't do this without him.

SPEAKER_05: That's just a snapshot at what you're about to experience if you spend the next 45 minutes with us here on Learn from People Who Lived It.

I'm incredibly grateful that you stop by with us every single week to listen to these episodes.

I sincerely hope that they're helping you move through the tough stuff in your own life and step into a better future for you and your family and everyone around you.

Let's jump off into today's episode with Kevin Lowe on Learn from People Who Lived It.

SPEAKER_02: Find Learn from People Who Lived It wherever you get podcasts.

Search it using all one word.

Learn from people who lived it.

SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another episode of Learn from People Who Lived It.

SPEAKER_03: What's up?

This is Kevin Lowe coming to you from East Central Florida.

SPEAKER_05: Look at this guy.

Lots of energy today.

Kevin, welcome to the show.

Who uh what story are you here to share today?

SPEAKER_03: Man, I am here to share.

I call it my story, but but really my hope is that it relates to other people.

It's a a story of love and loss, a story of um basically life being turned upside down, those unexpected events, but it's that single moment in time that changes everything.

Um that's the story I'm here to share is is is that story of my life in the hope that it can be an inspiration to somebody else.

SPEAKER_05: Love that, man.

Who do you hope hears this?

SPEAKER_03: Man, my hope always is somebody on the other side of the earth who I'll never meet and I'll never hear from.

But I hope that that person they hear something I say today, and it gives them that little bit of inspiration to just keep going one more day.

SPEAKER_05: Love it.

Well, listen, welcome to Learn from People Who Lived It.

We are joined as always, Kevin, with uh by our buddy Dr.

David Lycan, resident psychiatrist and all-around good fella.

How are you today, pal?

SPEAKER_00: Hey, it's a pleasure to be here as always, Matthew.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, we got a great podcast today.

I'm excited about this because Kevin, you actually represent the first person that we have brought on who is without sight.

You are blind, and I know we're gonna talk about some of those things.

Um, but if I can, I I I would love to just jump right into our uh your story a little bit today, Kevin, by asking you this question.

In 2003, everything changed for you.

Can you give me a sense of what was happening leading up to 2003 and then help our uh audience understand what happened in 2003?

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.

So 2003, I turned 17 years old.

Um, so that was the start of my junior year of high school.

Um, life was at a point where I mean it was going really good, man.

I I finally kind of had that core group of good friends who I really enjoyed doing stuff outside of school.

Um, when I turned 16, that sweet 16, I got my dream truck.

It was a uh a 96 forest green for def 150 four by four.

Um, and uh saw around the side of old Dixie Highway on the way to Publix grocery store with my mom one Saturday, and uh that was when I was 15, all excited about looking for a truck.

And uh I saw that thing, and baby, it was like love at first sight.

And um next thing you know, I had my dad um picking me up and hit me and him going to look at it, and uh it was it was the one.

And so turning 16 was was a big moment for me.

Um, getting that truck, man.

I I love being with my buddies, you know, out in the woods mudding and having fun, but it was also just a sense of freedom.

Um, literally just driving, windows down, country music blaring on the radio, CB whipping tinna whipping in the wind, and of course, big 38-inch Tsl super swamper mud tires humming like nobody's business, and uh so life life was good.

Um, I really grew up um honestly with a good life.

Um, I mean, I have been lucky that I have an amazing family.

Um, family is is really a part of my story from the very beginning.

Um, and I you know, family, you know, my parents, my my sister, my grandparents, aunts, and uncles.

Um, really blessed to have everybody living right here in in the same town.

And um anyways, coming back, you know, full circle back to 2003.

Um, as I said, everything was going great.

And uh, I always say it's kind of like that scene in the movie, you know, like where everything's going perfect.

It's like it's like the swimmers out there doing the backstroke in the ocean, but you know something's coming.

And um for me, that came with news that I had a brain tumor.

Um, I had been having some issues that my pediatrician kept blowing off um pretty much my entire life.

Um, and basically my my mom and my grandmother um they were at a point when they had had them had enough, and they both um had decided that they had to get me to a different doctor because they weren't getting the answers they needed.

Um, I at that time, 17 years old, I still hadn't gone through puberty.

I was only five foot three, had migraine headaches every day of my life, which I mean, those started when I was only, gosh, probably about four or five years old.

Um, I had all these different things.

I my mom would tell the doctor that I drank more than any human you ever seen.

I mean, literally, I didn't know what a night's sleep was.

My normal night's sleep was to literally wake up every single hour throughout the night, get a drink of water, go back to bed, wake up, pee, get a drink of water, go back to bed.

Um, and so um it would take a doctor who would actually really look at everything from the big picture and realize, yeah, there's definitely something wrong.

So that would be kind of the first domino to fall.

And um my mom was on her way to meet me and my stepdad, and I think stepbrother.

Um, we were gonna take our boat um out for the weekend um up the intercoastal waterway up to St.

Augustine, Florida, one of my favorite trips.

And uh my mom got a call from the doctor, um uh the endocrinologist on her way to meet us, and he had asked her, you know, to pull over, and she did, and he gave her the news that it was worse than he could have ever expected.

Um, we would come to find out that I had a thankfully non-cancerous uh brain tumor.

Uh, they compared it to the size of a plum, basically positioned right in the center of my head.

So if you basically went to the bridge of your nose, right in between your eyes and went straight back, that's where this tumor was.

It was it had completely encased my pituitary gland, was in the crosshairs of the optic nerve, and was now pressing against my carotid artery.

And um I remember my mom, she she made the decision to wait to tell me till we got up to St.

Augustine to the marina.

And you know, it's funny sometimes how memory works, it's kind of like um like a snapshot of of this time.

And and I remember being down in the cabin of our boat, flipping through a magazine, when my mom came down and sat down across from me, and she told me the news that she had gotten.

And next thing that my snapshot goes to is me running up the dock as fast as I could and going all the way up to the top of the stairs to the top of the marina, and then it flashes to me just standing with my arms crossed, leaning against the railing, looking out at the marina.

Because we never thought it was gonna be something like a brain tumor.

You always think it's it's just gonna be something simple, not this, and um yet that would be the start of this whole new chapter of my life that never never knew was gonna hit me.

SPEAKER_05: So I have a question, and Dave, if you have a question, please feel free to jump in.

But when you get news like that, I can only imagine, Kevin.

Like, I uh obviously all of us humans only have the capacity to sort of put ourselves in that position and be like, well, what would we do?

Or what do we think we would do?

That's probably a better way to say it.

And I would think when you hear those two words brain tumor, man, like it would be really easy to think the worst.

And so I I think my question is at 17, did you go there, or did you have some string of hope in there that it was gonna be okay?

SPEAKER_03: Um, I did.

I mean, the initial shock of it was indeed just that shock, sure.

But I had the leading pediatric neurosurgeon an hour from my home over in Orlando, Florida, and he assured us that it was no problem.

He literally said, He said, Listen, I take these out all the time, and which they wanted me to get in for surgery pretty soon because they literally said that I was six months away from dying with this tumor.

Oh my god.

And um, and he he told us, he he told me, he said, Kevin, he's like, we're gonna go in.

He said, We'll make a cut, basically kind of removing like the front, like kind of quadrant of my skull, and they'll go in there and take out the tumor.

And he told me that I'd be back to school in three weeks.

Um, the worst news of all is that I had to stay off of my four-wheeler for six months, um, which I thought I thought was a bit excessive.

Um, but me and my personality at that moment in time, um, I mean, I remember that I remember the appointment.

I can remember my me and my mom, my dad, probably my sister, um, grandparents, all in all in the hospital room, uh, with that first appointment with the with the neurosurgeon.

And I remember him showing the MRI up on up on the wall.

Um, and right there, plain as day, man, in the center of my head was this big white blob.

And um I remember it was emotional.

I can remember crying the entire way home.

Um, and again, crying just at the it being scary of being a shock, but again, we never thought anything was gonna go wrong.

This was literally the answer to prayers.

We figured out what was wrong, right?

And that was the entire mindset going into surgery.

SPEAKER_05: So, when did you ultimately get on the table and have that surgery?

How long after finding out?

SPEAKER_03: Um, it was only, I'm thinking it was close to probably about two weeks.

Um, not a long time at all.

No, not not long at all.

Um, it was long enough that we um were able to um have a going-away bob party.

As I said, I named my tumor Bob, Bob the tumor.

So we had a going-away bob party.

Um, and uh and uh I I can remember going back to school and of course um it must have it maybe even been a little bit more than two weeks because I remember that I I dropped out of trigonometry um and became an office aide and for my guidance counselor because we knew that that class, I mean, heck, I was no fan of trigonometry to begin with, much less gonna miss a bunch of it.

Figured that would be pretty hard for me to keep up with.

Um, and I remember, you know, man, it was it was all kind of fun.

I mean, I remember telling all my friends, you know, like, see you later, suckers.

I'm out of here for a couple of weeks.

And um, and uh, and that was that was the mindset.

Um, surgery was set for October 28th, 2003.

Um, and literally, um I went into the operating room.

Um, I remember my mom and dad, they were the ones who followed me back as they wheeled me in the in the bed.

Um and you know, man, what I say is if I knew then what I know now, I don't know that I could have allowed them to push me through those doors.

Really?

Because I don't know that I could have stopped staring at the faces of my family.

Because once I went through the doors, everything I ever knew, everything I loved, it was taken from me in an instant.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: And that was me waking from surgery to be left completely blind.

It it took everyone by by surprise.

Now, my memory stops um at that point going into the operating room.

And my memory doesn't actually come back till probably a good month or two later, back at home.

But I ended up remaining in the ICU for two weeks.

Nothing was going right.

I mean, the loss of vision was just one thing.

It was all kind of issues related to my sodium levels, my endocrine levels.

Um, literally, my entire family, both my my mom's side of the family, my dad's side of the family, they were all there, basically overtook the pediatric ICU at Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital.

And literally, it would take my family, they would do shifts of I think four or five people, and they would last like 10 minutes because I was super combative.

I was trying to pull out every port.

And they, my family's so amazing.

They they didn't want the hospital to strap me down, so instead, they would take the time to have groups of them be in there with me to try to just keep me okay, and they did that for basically two weeks.

SPEAKER_05: And how long does it take you to accept your fate that you're not gonna see again?

Is that a gradual process?

Is that something that you're still dealing with?

Can you help me understand that?

SPEAKER_03: Um, I will tell you that it took pretty much the better part of 10 years.

SPEAKER_05: 10 years, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: Um, I I never stopped moving forward.

Um I always I mean, that happened the beginning of my junior year of high school.

Um, I never went back to to school the rest of my junior year.

But one thing that was kind of remarkable about my story is I mean, I was a kid who honestly I hated school.

I mean, if I could be sick with the flu, that was a that was a plus.

Um, and and um and yet for some reason, which now I believe it was nothing but God, um, I had this desire, and my family will tell you that as soon as this happened to me, I just kept saying, I still want to be able to graduate with my class.

Um, but I but I I would graduate.

Um I I literally walked walked across the stage of my high school graduation.

SPEAKER_05: Um I found myself wanting to ask you this question, and it's so irrelevant, and who cares?

But you made such a big deal about it, it's just coming to the forefront.

Whatever happened to this truck you bought?

SPEAKER_03: Man, um, my dad kept it for a long time.

That's great.

Everybody dealt with it in their own way.

Um, my dad was one who he was keeping it for when I could see again.

I always thought that I would see again because there is uh medical procedure, there's trials happening in China.

There, there's we we grow up in a world expecting that everything is fixable.

Yes, um, and that was a big lesson to learn is that that's not the case.

Um, and I finally, my in regards to the truck, I um I mean literally my four-wheeler, we would end up selling the four-wheeler.

Um, I finally told my dad um one day, and it was probably gosh, I would say a couple years later, I finally told him, I said, Dad, I said, I said, let's sell my truck.

I said, because if I ever get my site back, I want a brand new truck.

We've earned it.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's great.

Okay, so so I have so many questions, but I don't want to interrupt you because you're you're you're really great at communicating this story.

But so it takes you 10 years to come to terms of it with it.

What is that 10 years filled with?

Because this is where we really, I believe, have such an opportunity to learn from you, Kevin.

None most of us don't know what it's like to not be able to see.

And from what I understand, you don't see shapes, shadows, light, it's just dark.

Correct.

Yeah.

And so, you know, you think about like what is the average 17-year-old doing in today's world?

And it's filled with activities, it's filled with the endless death scroll on their TikTok and Instagram feeds, it's filled with all of these things that are so visual, and um, you know, from video games to YouTube to social media to email to learning your schoolwork, and you would have to learn a different way to kind of approach those things, right?

SPEAKER_03: Exactly.

And that's coming from a from a person who was a total visual learner all growing up, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: Um okay, so walk us through that a little bit.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so I I call the first probably year or so was nothing but survival mode.

Um, trying to get past all the different medical complications, getting used to all these new medications because now you know my pituitary, I have no pituitary.

Function.

So now I'm taking all these new hormone medications to replace all the stuff that my body should be producing naturally.

All of those medications I still take today.

Um, so learning that I had short-term memory loss for six months.

Um I would end up also losing my ability to smell, was another weird thing.

Um, so survival mode.

The rest of that 10-year period, I would tell you, was learning how to love life again, even though I couldn't see it.

Um it was a lot of trial and error.

And um my parents, the they would never say it to me, but they would often say it to my mom or my grandmother.

Is um we were fortunate enough that right where I live, there's actually a big uh center for the for the blind.

Uh, they have different organizations, uh, center for the visually impaired, division of blind services, um, all these kind of near our local community college.

And that was amazing for me to have that resource right here where I live.

Um, but I can remember the the counselors there, they would often tell you know, my mom that you know, I that you know, Kevin, he needs to he needs to accept this and he needs to to get moving on with life.

And um my mom, thank goodness, was um was really amazing.

And uh she would let them know that Kevin will do it when Kevin is ready.

SPEAKER_04: Yes.

SPEAKER_03: Um and she knew me, she knew who the person I was, my personality.

She knew you're not gonna push him.

Um, I can remember going there uh one time my mom dropped me off, um, which I remember feeling I felt really, really tricked.

Um, because I thought I was going for one little class, and instead I was being dropped off for like the whole afternoon.

Um, and they wanted me to do classes like learning how to do laundry and cook.

And I remember saying, but my friends don't even do this stuff.

Um, you know, we we and uh um it was it was it was tough.

Um a big part though of that first 10 years was was my nana.

Um when you look at things now, um you can see how it all fit together.

Why did my why did my grandparents, my my nana, have her children so very young?

Why did my mom have my sister and me so very young?

Well, in a situation like this, I had a grandmother who I stayed with, who looking back on it now, I realize was actually very young 20 years ago.

And she had a goal to make me laugh and smile.

And so me and Nana, we would get into some of the craziest stuff during the week when my mom would drop me off and she would go on to work.

I mean, Nana, we we would do crazy stuff in the house.

She would we would end up playing like hide and seek, um, and I would be chasing after her.

Um, I mean, we said if anybody from you know uh the services looked through the window, they probably would have arrested her thinking she was abusing the blind kid.

Um, you know, but uh but but we we would just have the best adventures, and something powerful happened that I feel so grateful for.

So I got to become best friends with my grandmother to this day, um, which coming up October of this year will be 21 years.

I still call my Nana every single night between 7:30 and 8.

I know her schedule.

Um, and I talk to her.

Um, because not because she's my grandmother, because she's my best friend.

And it's the same thing with my family, with my parents, my sister.

I got to become best friends with my family.

And um, it's really something special.

SPEAKER_05: How were your how was your sister uh throughout this process?

Because siblings can be tough, right?

SPEAKER_03: Um it was really hard on Tiffany.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, man, um, I also got a lot of attention, right?

Like they had to.

Not not that, not that.

It was hard on her what happened to me.

I see.

My sister was older, you know.

My sister is five years older than me.

Um, so she had actually just started college.

Um, when this happened to me, she actually had just started nursing school.

Um and um it was it was hard on my sister.

Just watching what happened to me, and then what I started to say is is I often tell people that what happened to me didn't just happen to me, it happened to a family, right?

An entire family had a tragedy, a loss, and it affected everybody in some way, shape, or form.

Um, and everybody individually.

I mean, my dad, his whole thing was always trying to keep us doing crazy cool stuff.

I mean, we we went from me having my own four-wheeler to buying something called like a side-by-side where we're still out in the woods.

Um, it was literally a period, like I said, of learning how to love this life again, even though I couldn't see it.

And that took a lot of trial and error, a lot of just trying stuff.

Um, and a lot of stuff didn't work, right?

A lot of stuff you didn't like, and uh, and then I I tell everybody time um is the thing that can heal things, can fix things like no other, and it's horrible because it's the thing that takes the longest, yeah, it's just giving it time.

SPEAKER_05: There's no way to speed it up.

That's the that's the tough stuff.

Did you spend a lot of time pissed off, or did anger like where where was anger in your equation?

SPEAKER_03: Um the only anger I had um was I remember so many times at night crying myself to sleep, um, begging, pleading God to let me see again when I woke up in the morning.

And um, I mean, I every night, every night I would pray, um, even right after coming home from the hospital when I don't even remember have memory of it.

My mom tells the story of her asking me one morning who it is that I am always talking to when I go to bed at night.

And she told her I said, Oh, it's Jesus, that he's always there with me.

And um the thing is about anger, um, there were times when I'd be sobbing, when I would get angry with God, because no matter how hard I prayed, every morning I'd wake up and I'd open my eyes and I'd see the same thing I did when they were closed.

And all I wanted so bad was for God just to let me see again.

And a lot of times I remember even saying, God, just let me see nothing else but just my family.

I just want to be able to see them.

And it never it never would come true.

And I would get angry with him, but it would never be for more than a minute, because I would always end by asking God for his forgiveness, because I knew that I couldn't do this without him.

SPEAKER_05: Kevin, this story is just unbelievable.

And I know, and I just feel so lucky to have met you and and to be listening to this testimony right now, because you know, I think we can spend the next 30 minutes kind of in in a little bit more of the hopeful lane, right?

Which is the the way that you were able to work through all of this stuff.

Because, you know, uh you hear this story time and time again.

It's not just from about somebody who you know loses their sight, but people people go to war with God all the time about the circumstances in their life.

And you know, they they whether you know, uh when you were telling your story, I was thinking of my buddy Ryan Penny who lost his ability to walk and would he shared that same testimony.

He said, You know, I go to bed at night, I would just pray to God.

Like tomorrow morning when I wake up, let my legs work.

And you know, so you know, it's it's it's a lot of different things, right?

Your yours is your yours is your version, but there's a lot of people that have wars with God and and have to kind of reconcile those relationships.

And so ultimately, it is it faith, is it faith?

Because I think this is one of the things that's interesting about your story.

Can you land on faith singularly to say, like, this is what catapulted me through this, or what other tools and and people and processes did you have to use to get yourself to the place you are now?

Because we all heard the way you started this podcast, man, and everybody fell in love with you in the first two minutes like the joy in your voice, the inflection in your voice, the way you tell stories, the zest that you can clearly see that you have now for life.

So, what were some of those things that were transformative in you coming around?

SPEAKER_03: Three things.

Okay.

First, first was faith, second is family.

Um, as I've told you, my family is everything.

My family was always there to cry with me to help me.

They still are today.

The third thing is that I believe in all of my heart that God knew this was gonna happen from the very beginning.

They say that the type of brain tumor I had was something that probably happened when I was being formed.

It was a cell or something that went to the wrong place.

It was a part of me, and God knew that.

And God made me to be the kid who was super organized, he made me a kid who was naturally positive.

The glass is always half full.

He made me a kid who just loves life because he knew what was gonna happen when I turned 17, and he knew that I would be able to come out the other side, a better man, with a testimony to share the power of God.

Those are the three things.

SPEAKER_05: So, with regard to faith, like uh what we should talk about if you're comfortable with it, and Dave, love for you to jump in too is like faith can look like a lot of different things to a lot of people.

And so, as you articulate your story and you talk about God and Jesus, like for somebody else, that's Buddha, or for somebody else, that's the universe, or for somebody else, that's the that's a different creator, right?

Like, it doesn't, I don't want anybody to get hung up on words and language that we're using here.

What you're talking about is trusting something bigger than yourself, and I love that you put that third one in there, which you said, man, like what I wrote down on my piece of paper, Kevin, was he trusted the plan.

Like eventually you said, I surrender to this, I surrender that this is how it's supposed to be.

And I I think, how in the heck did you get there, man?

Like, do you you you pray on it?

Did you just was it just the family support?

Like you had to go through something in your head to get to there too.

SPEAKER_03: It was it was all of it, yeah.

It was all of it over time, and um, and you know what finally did it for me, um, that really made it where I could really move forward is that I was listening to an audiobook, and it was of uh a book of Eric Weinemayer.

He's very famous for being the first blind person to ever summit Mount Everest.

SPEAKER_04: Wow.

SPEAKER_03: Well, the uh book that I listened to, though, was a book that he did about kayaking the Grand Canyon.

And at the end of the book, um, it was the guide, his guide who had guided him down that river.

He they they were all done, they were all loaded up, ready to leave.

And that guy he walked out into the middle of the river, and he stood in the middle facing upstream, and he had his hands outstretched and his fingers splayed, letting the the current of the river just run through his fingers.

And he said something that stuck with me in the most profound of ways, is him talking to the river.

He said, I'll be back someday, but for right now, I got more life to live.

When I heard that in the audiobook, I rewound it and I listened to it again.

And literally, it was like this moment when I realized I don't have to give up on seeing again, but I understand it might not be till I'm in heaven, and that's okay because right now I got more life to live.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, Dave, I think we have a great opportunity here to talk about surrender and how you can get to that stage with anything in life.

And I I know that you know, Dave has worked effortlessly with veterans in our community for you know 20 plus years.

And these guys, too, man, they go through situations that let's be honest, in a lot of ways, they aren't going to get right again until they go meet their creator, right?

It's just this is life, this is the this is what you're gonna be, this is the card you're dealt with, and now it's about getting one foot in front of the other and and moving.

So speak about that a little, Dave, if you don't mind.

SPEAKER_00: So I as a kid, I grew up in the church, and um, and I've been to a bunch of different churches and seen different styles of of Christian thought and and different denominations and religions.

And the idea that you know you can pray and make a problem disappear, that rarely happens.

I mean, it does sometimes there are miraculous things that happen um to people, but um, you can go from one end of the Bible to the other, and you will never find a passage in scripture that says that God will not allow you to suffer.

Um, you're not going to be spared suffering in this life.

What God does promise is He'll always be with you, right?

So that's the assurance that you have.

Um, and the quicker you can come to that realization and say, okay, this is what happened, and and um, and I know God is with me, and and I'll move forward and I'll I'll figure out how to make a good life with what I have.

Um, one of the things that you um fell upon was humor.

And to me, that's a huge piece of um of healing and being able to find purpose and wholeness.

Um, you know, Matthew knows I have a pretty dark sense of humor, and I can find something to laugh about in ICU, you know, and in really dark places, and and being able to find those little absurd moments and those those, you know, find something to laugh about in the middle of of the struggle.

Um, it helps to keep things moving along and it helps to keep your morale up and it helps to keep you looking for the next you know mountain to climb and the next thing to conquer.

Um, so that's an important thing, and and uh it's so wonderful to hear that that you you know with your family that you were able to find that.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I'd love to ask you, Kevin, about your sense of humor.

What is it like?

Is it a little dark yourself sometimes, or what is your sense of humor like?

SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, I don't know that I would call it dark, I would call it I just would rather laugh than cry.

Um, and and sometimes that means um, like you said, cracking a joke when maybe it's not quote unquote appropriate, right?

But sometimes you just need to laugh.

Um I mean, the saying that laughter is the best medicine, there is so much truth to that.

Um, and and that is that is the thing for me.

Um, now there's some people who take humor.

Um, I've been around them who they they meet me for the first time, they hear me crack a little joke of you know that I always try to make people feel comfortable when they're around me, so I always will say some type of silly little joke about being blind, and then there's some of the people who take it to another level and they start cracking jokes about me being blind, and that's when you're kind of like, guys, not not really the best taste, you know.

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_05: So funny.

People have people have no clue sometimes, do they?

No, no, really, really not.

Oh my gosh.

So, how um okay, so let's let's get back to your story.

So you get you get to this 10-year mark where like you're going, okay, uh, I'm I'm in my lane now, I'm comfortable with my life.

Help us understand what your life is like now.

What what kinds of things are you filling it up with?

And what are you doing and how are you operating in 2024?

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.

So 2013 um it was a pivotal year.

Um, not only did I come to that that realization of of moving forward, but I also participated in um a program at the uh local Center for the Visually Impaired, and it was a uh they called it a blind or not blind, a job readiness program.

And I was there with a group of other other blind people, uh all different ages, and um at the end of it, it was like I think about three months long.

At the end of it, you would get an internship at whatever kind of business you had an idea of that you would like to work in, and so for myself, I chose radio and travel.

Um, travel was something that I realized that even after becoming blind, travel was even more vital than before because travel, you don't always have to see stuff to experience it, and so lo and behold, I would end up getting an internship at a local AM radio station, um, where I would work three days a week on the morning drive um in the studio with the guys, and at the same time was interning at a local travel agency.

Um, I mentioned both of those because those, as you will see, are kind of pivotal um in the years moving forward.

Um, I would ultimately end up uh starting my own company.

Um, it was called Better Days Travel.

It was a home-based travel agency, and that launched in 2013.

And um I would get to run a business, create a brand, book vacations, all of that um from my home.

And I did that for the next uh seven years up until 2020.

And coming into 2020, it was uh gonna be my best year ever, of course.

Um but also around this time, though, I knew that I wasn't meant to be a travel agent, but I didn't know what else to do.

And so uh fortunately for me, the pandemic made that very easy.

Um, because within a week's time span, I went from my best year ever to a company that had not a single trip on the books.

SPEAKER_00: Oh goodness.

SPEAKER_03: Um, and uh that is when kind of things took a whole new spin, is when we were in quarantine, and uh, you know, I I belonged to several different you know organizations and groups of of other travel agents, and you know, of course, we're on like daily Zoom calls trying to encourage everybody and and whatnot, and of course, thinking when when is this gonna be over?

Who's actually booking something?

Um, and I had the idea of starting a YouTube channel, um, it was something I had thought about for a while, and so I thought, you know what, perfect opportunity.

We're we're stuck in the house, so let's do it.

So I started ordering like tripods and all of this jazz, and um, I had another pivotal realization, Kevin.

If you don't have somebody here who can help film you to be sure the lighting is right, you're not gonna be able to do this by yourself.

And if there's one thing I've learned in life, the less that you can count on other people, the better off you are.

And so I quickly realized my YouTube stardom was done.

And that is when my sister, Tiffany, she said, Why don't you start a podcast?

And my response, what the heck is a podcast?

Um, and so then I I lo and behold, would start a podcast.

Um, and at first it was about travel.

Um, I thought I was still gonna be a travel agent.

Um, God had not clued me in on his plans quite yet.

Um, he would let me get started.

And um, you know, starting a podcast was one of the greatest things that's ever happened to me.

Not only did it end up kind of taking over my life, leading me off in a direction that I never could have imagined, but it opened doors for me to get to meet people all over the world.

And I and about the time that I realized this really powerful thing about a podcast is about the time when I realized, you know what, I don't know where I'm headed, I don't know where this road's going, but I know it feels right, and so I'm just gonna follow it.

And uh I would end up rebranding the podcast a couple of times, finding my groove, and ultimately realizing that through podcasting, it was the first time that I could finally show the rest of the sighted world what it was like to see somebody through my eyes, yes, and that you only see them through the sound of their voice, the stories they tell, the emotion.

And I realized when I realized that power, that's when it really took off for me.

SPEAKER_05: So, what is your podcast called?

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so it is called Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

Um, and you can find it on all apps under the name of Inspirational and Motivational Stories of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

SPEAKER_05: Incredible, man.

I don't know if you know this about me, Kevin, but I spent 20 almost 28 years behind the microphone doing morning radio in terrestrial radio.

And so when you were talking about how radio was one of those things that you were into, I thought, wow, man, that's that's incredible.

That was my entire journey was was behind a mic.

And look, I'm I'm still doing it.

I'm still I walked away from it three years ago, but I'm still behind this microphone because I love it so much.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, you know, I mean that's what I said is really, really pretty cool.

Is I said, you know, I got to kind of come full circle back to being being at a mic, um, because dude, I loved working at the radio station so much.

I I was supposed to be an intern who wasn't supposed to be on air, um, but they quickly realized that Kev had stuff to say.

Um, yes, and so they brought me out of the little booth and into the actual studio, and um, it was you know mostly about political stuff, um, related local, and you know, I always had a view on it, and so I would pop in, you know, with my view as a as they called me Kalo.

SPEAKER_05: So that's so great.

Um, let's offer some hope to somebody right now, like who's who's in in the darkness themselves right now?

So maybe literally, maybe figuratively, but you know, their life isn't making a ton of sense for them right now, and they just maybe they're doing some of that stuff that it took you 10 years to realize.

Is there anything that you would offer that person in this moment that would be comforting to them?

SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.

Um, if anybody tries to tell you that you should be over it, that you should be better now, that you shouldn't be sad, I want you to realize that they're not living the life that you're living.

You they are not the same person as you.

We are all different and we're all on our own timeline.

The next thing I will tell you is to just let yourself be.

I understand that right now life sucks, it hurts, and you want it to be over with.

And I promise you this is that it will be.

Sometimes though, you just gotta go through the darkness.

But I promise you, one of my favorite sayings is that there's always a rainbow after the rain.

So I promise if you can just keep moving forward, putting in the motions, doing what you have to do, I promise there will come a day when all of a sudden you realize that you're smiling again, you're laughing, you're not thinking about what is wrong.

Instead, you're excited about what's in the future.

And I promise it's it's not too far off.

SPEAKER_05: Dave, any final thoughts from you as we look to wind down with Kevin today?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Kevin, those are some great points.

You know, I I've worked with so many people over the years that have had losses and injuries and and things that have happened in a blink of an eye that then changed the future for them uh instantly.

And um, I I think your point about you know, it takes time to kind of accept where you are and and and it's also a grieving process.

Um, I I think the balance in that is if you're if you're stuck waiting for things to go back to the way they were before, then you're never going to be able to move forward.

Um, but but I think moving forward and still occasionally needing to still grieve or or needing to feel down for a day and kind of you know take inventory of where you are and say, oh geez, you know, a year ago I was planning on doing this, and now that's off the table.

And you know, I I think it's completely natural and necessary to go through that grieving process.

And and I think that's where what you were saying about hey, everybody kind of processes at their own pace.

I that's absolutely true from my experience.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: And you can't push somebody faster than they're then they're ready to go.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: Well, it's clear to me that there's a few ingredients in getting it all figured out.

Faith is gonna be important, your family's gonna be important, letting go that that bit about surrender and just trusting the plan is going to be important.

Uh, if there's any bobs in your life, you're gonna need to get rid of them.

Uh, you're gonna need some great relationships with your family and you know your grandparents.

And one day you're gonna kayak the Grand Canyon.

And because Dave and I both live in Arizona, if that ever happens, you have to let us know because we want to come do it with you.

SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I'm down for kayaking the Grand Canyon.

SPEAKER_05: You're not okay.

I want to go with you, Kevin.

I want to go with you.

SPEAKER_00: That's a terrifying prospect to me.

SPEAKER_05: Dave's a little bit more risk-adverse than I am.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, oh my gosh, incredible.

Kevin, I cannot thank you enough for being with us today.

I mean, I I just honestly, I feel like we all went to church today in the best way possible.

And your story is so inspirational.

And I think it's just what people needed to hear today.

I know for me, honestly, it's exactly what I needed to hear today, man.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.

And and if you wouldn't mind, I would love to share just one little piece just so that somebody realizes sometimes God answers our prayers in ways that we don't expect.

Go for myself, 2017, 14 years after becoming completely blind, I would end up having these pieces fall into place that had me going out to Los Angeles, California, training one-on-one with a guy to learn echolocation.

Oh, it's that, yeah, like a literal, like a bat, like a dolphin.

Literally, I retrained my brain's visual cortex to see through sound.

Third day of training.

Um, days one and two.

My my instructor, he's telling me to make this clicking noise with my tongue, it gets through my mouth, and I'm supposed to be seeing stuff, and I'm not seeing stuff.

He's he's also completely blind.

Um, and uh finally, day three, we're working in the little Airbnb apartment.

Me and my mom, my sister had rented, and my mom and sister they would go off every day doing tourist stuff while me and me and Brian Bushway hung around his neighborhood, him helping me.

And third day, we're in the apartment and uh we're working identifying corners of the room, and man, all of a sudden, it was like a light switch got turned on, and all of a sudden, I could see the wall in front of me.

It turned to this fuzzy gray, and I could walk alongside the wall without touching it, and then all of a sudden, it was like a deep dark cavern.

Well, that was the doorway into the kitchen.

That day would forever train would forever change my life.

Um, I remember going to bed that night, and and at that point, I only had just a little taste of it.

But I realized at that moment that sometimes God answers your prayers in ways that you never expected.

Today, I can tell you, it's kind of like a muscle in which the more you use it, the stronger it gets.

My life, my world is no longer nothing, it's no longer just blackness.

It literally has shape and dimension.

Um, there's times when uh recently I'll be standing in the kitchen, and maybe it's because of the water in on the sink hitting a dish just right, and it activates it.

And literally I can look over, and literally it was just recently.

I looked over, I was in the kitchen cooking with my mom, and I looked over.

I said, Mom, just so you know, I see I see you.

And literally I can see her whole figure.

It's not like I used to see, but it's a pretty darn cool way to see today.

That's really cool.

SPEAKER_05: That's amazing, man.

SPEAKER_00: You know, if I could get science-y for a second, um, so Kevin, what happened with taking out the tumor is they um they damaged or or had to completely cut the optic nerve, right?

So the visual cortex of the brain is all still there, and all that processing power is all still there.

Um, and I I've heard, you know, talking to other people that have lost their sight that you can you can reprogram that part of the brain to pick up other things like visual and spatial uh functions, even though there's no sight uh input coming into the brain.

So that's really cool that you were able to do that.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was um it was uh it's it's truly been it's truly been life-changing.

Um you know, I I always say that you know, I never would would choose this path for anybody, not for my worst enemy.

But all these things that all these things that I learn about life, about God, at the end of the day, man, I have to be grateful that it's all gone the way it has, and that God chose me to be the one.

SPEAKER_05: I am literally fighting back tears this whole podcast.

I don't know why I'm so emotional today, but it's just awesome.

It's just awesome what you've been able to do and overcome.

And it's such a testimony to like just put your faith in it, just surrender to it, just let it go and see what happens.

And um, man, you just I think it's just I mean, back me up, Dave, right?

Like, it's just inspiring when you get around people who have like done the thing, they've done the work.

SPEAKER_00: Well, it it goes to what our mutual friend Jill McMahon uh is fond of saying is that you know when you work through the traumatic event, um, what you come up with on the other side becomes your superpower.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: Yes.

SPEAKER_05: So love it.

Well, Kevin, we'll send everybody to your podcast.

And um, you have an open invitation, man.

If you ever wake up one day and and God's put on your heart that it's time to be on this podcast again, you send me an email and we'll get the booking and we'll make it happen, okay?

SPEAKER_03: I love that, man.

You guys have been amazing today.

Uh, literally, this has made my day.

Thank you guys for having me.

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