Persevering through blindness

As DeLaine Mardell swept open her latest afghan, it tumbled open across her lap, revealing a gleaming moose silhouetted on a sea of intricate green stitches.

Tacked on the corner were two ribbons from the North Idaho Fair and Rodeo - one for first place overall, one for the Premier title - with a judge's note lauding the immaculate workmanship.

Impressive, considering the Coeur d'Alene woman never looked at the afghan once when she was making it.

Nor has DeLaine looked at any of the multitude of afghans and crochet projects she has cobbled over the last two decades.

But seeing the product of her labor isn't the point, she says.

"I like a challenge, that's what it's all about. I don't like to sit idle and do nothing," said DeLaine, who became totally blind about 15 years back. "Life, in a way, is a challenge for me."

There is never a moment DeLaine, who declined to give her age, isn't working on something.

While her husband, Wade, is away on trucking trips, DeLaine immerses herself in crochet projects. Some are elaborate like afghans, others simpler items like pot holders, all of which she gives away to friends and family.

Crocheting blind is not as easy as it sounds.

For elaborate projects like the afghan, it takes a team.

Usually, DeLaine recruits a friend to pore over possible designs with her. After choosing one, they make a graph of each stitch, and another transcribes the graph onto a tape recorder.

Using plastic clips to keep track of colors, DeLaine listens to the tape for weeks on end, her needle patiently following the droning recording of "Three green, four black, five green..."

"It is tedious," she admitted with a laugh. "But that's the way I like things. Now I'm worried it's getting too easy. I'll have to find something else to do."

She has started experimenting with knitting, she said with a groan, and she even pulled out the neglected sewing machine this winter to sew her husband a robe.

"He thought I'd bought it," she said of Wade's reaction. "He said, 'So this means you're going to start mending everything?' and I said, 'Well, we'll see about that.'"

Between her projects, she is active. A housewife, she keeps her home tidy, and looks after her three cats and her guide dog, Prudence. She goes out with friends and participates in church activities.

All of it, she said, is evidence that she is pretty darn capable.

"Some people are afraid to talk to me, they're afraid I'm going to melt," she said, sitting in her living room with Prudence at her side. "They talk like we (blind people) are helpless. We're not. We just learn to do things with other senses."

DeLaine's independence is mostly the result of her studies at the Idaho Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Boise, she said, which she attended after graduating high school in her hometown of Twin Falls.

Looking back, DeLaine said she doesn't know how she got through grade school, with the Retinitis Pigmentosa impairing her sight since childhood.

"I couldn't see the boards, and kids make fun of kids," she said. "I had a hard time getting through school."

But just like her crocheting, she was up to teaching herself, she said. She was able to catch up by reading large print textbooks.

"I got through it," she said.

She has adapted to all of life that way, she said.

She trusted touch and hearing to help her through careers like building computers and working as a telephone operator, a job that brought her to Coeur d'Alene in 1978.

She relied on her senses and observant neighbors to raise a son on her own after divorcing her first husband, she said.

Brice Exley, now 23, said his mother won't let her lack of sight stop her from anything, not even parasailing.

"I've never known anything different. She's just someone who refuses to let something like that get in her way," said Exley, who lives in Brookings, S.D.

He wasn't surprised when his mother presented a rose afghan for Exley and his bride at their recent wedding, he added.

"She's crocheted stuff for me all my life, so I'm like, 'OK, whatever,' and my mother-in-law freaked out that she can crochet," he said.

DeLaine's close friend Dian Burrell said DeLaine is an inspiration to all her friends, especially in the way she takes on new challenges.

When Burrell persuaded her to sing a solo at church, DeLaine learned it with a Braille transcription and performed flawlessly, despite her lack of singing experience.

"When we performed that song, everyone was very emotional. I don't want to use the cliche there wasn't a dry eye in the house, but I can strongly confirm that there wasn't," Burrell said. "At first she said it was something she could not and would not do, but she gave it a try."

Her next challenge, DeLaine said, might be getting a job in medical transcription, which she trained to do at North Idaho College in the early '90s.

Hopefully, she said, it won't be easy.

"If I didn't like a challenge, I don't know what I'd do. I'd probably sit and do nothing," she said sitting in her living room, her crochet needle zipping through a piece of fabric as she spoke. "I'm always looking for something that will keep me interested."