When Executive Director of the LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Bryan Bashin received this missive, he was perplexed: "A businessman has passed away. I think you might want to talk to us."
The communication was apparently about a bequest of over $125 million from Seattle millionaire Donald Sirkin to the LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired. The gift was a mystery, so was the giver.
Neither Bashin nor the LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired has had any previous contact or encounter with Donald Sirkin. The will does not give any explanation either, just a few lines indicating Donald Sirkin's wish to give to the LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired in San Francisco.
Bashin did what most people would do under such incredible circumstances, he set off to find out about this generous benefactor.
Bashin did not need too long to create the picture of Donald Sirkin and his life. According to Bashin's interview with friends and colleagues, Donal Sirkin was a dynamic, charismatic businessman given to big gestures and generosity. Especially in the later years of his life, he seemed to become more given to healthy diets and extended exercise. Even when he travelled, he ate in his hotel room and stayed in his room to exercise rather than go out. He calorie-restricted diet was mostly made of seaweed and pomegranate juice. Eventually, Donald Sirkin became a recluse and lived most of his remaining years in a little room off the kitchen at his private estate in Puget Sound. The house itself was in shambles and in dire need of repair. This house was part of Donald Sirkin's donation to the LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
When Bashin came to Donald Sirkin's collection of "giant light boxes, magnifiers, enormous plasma TVs in his kitchen and throughout his house," Bashin finally understood that his mysterious benefactor had become blind in the later years of life. None of the people that knew Donald Sirkin ever found out. He tried to hide his condition away, even tried to fight it with his strict health and exercise regime. For whatever reason, Donald Sirkin kept his condition a secret that he chose to deal with alone.
Donald Sirkin's experience with blindness was similar to Bryan Bashin's own story. He himself refused to accept his condition and lived with a bravado designed to spurn what he perceived as a public stigma against blindness. For many years while his vision progressively dimmed, Bashin tried to work around his condition until, like Donald Sirkin, his workaround no longer worked.
Bashin was forced to seek help and came to the LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired to train to live as a blind person. He discovered technology that made everything easier. As Bashin learned more, the more realised that so many possibilities were open to him and that blindness could become a simple inconvenience to live with.
Bashin knew that many visually impaired individuals are going through the same practical, emotional and mental struggles that he and Donald Sirkin went through. His mission is to reach out as many of these individuals as he could through the LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired and to make the transition into a blind or visually impaired person's lifestyle easy and even exciting. With help, a visually impaired person could have the same opportunities and capabilities that a seeing person has.
Among Bashin's plans and projects are a new headquarters with dormitory facilities for blind people training for skills and navigation and a motivational project that awards blind people who accomplish extraordinary things on a personal level, a professional level or even technological level.
