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Student’s blind
By Susan Kreifels
determination overcomes
‘screwed-up’ past
Star-BulletinNOT until Roberta Au Young lost her sight did she get a clear vision. That vision, she hopes, will help disabled people on the Big Island see a better future as well.
Au Young, 30, leaves little doubt among those who know her that she will succeed one day in opening a disability center. She's already come so far from a life she calls "screwed up."
Five years ago, she was a college dropout. She weighed 580 pounds. She was hooked on ice. Then the light went out.
She awoke one morning and felt the sun, but couldn't see it. Drugs, some doctors believe, made her blind.
Now she's Windward Community College's graduate of the year, an award-winning writer, an honor student, a scholarship holder, and less than half her previous size.
"Walking that line," Au Young said about her recent graduation, where she received a standing ovation, "was the most joy I ever felt."
Au Young pointed to many people who inspired her change, but they say it was she who inspired them.
"I just tasted life and I like how it tastes," Au Young said. "I want to try different things."
The problems started when she was a chubby child whose weight went out of control. Au Young said she tried everything to lose weight.
"I never fit in," she said. Everyone "looked at me strangely."
When she enrolled at University of Hawaii-Manoa in 1987, she found a fit. "Drugs were my ticket to be accepted."
After flunking out, she moved to the Big Island, relying on crystal methamphetamine to lose 100 pounds. Her addiction, some doctors believe, led an optic nerve to burst. Others believe it was her weight.
Her right eye is blind, and she only sees shapes and shadows in her left. She manages with the help of a cane, but is considering a seeing-eye dog. Doctors say she will soon be totally blind, a fate she now faces with surprising calm.
But when it first happened, she started "to close down on reality. I wanted to give up on life, to be cooped up in a house and live like a hermit."
Doctors persuaded her to have a gastric bypass, an operation to shrink her stomach, and her weight stabilized at 220. But she didn't get over her depression until she went to Oahu's Ho'opono Center for the Blind, where "I started to be the driver of my own bus."
Au Young met a woman who had been blind since birth and "didn't know what a flower in full bloom looked like." The woman had still succeeded at business. Au Young's belief that no one "would hire a blind person" turned to "if this lady can do it ..." She started to market her own Hawaiian crafts.
AMY Gugelyk, a counselor at the center, now uses Au Young as a role model and mentor.
"She's inspiring, makes you feel good as a person," Gugelyk said. "She keeps the heart, that's really important. She's always into helping others."
Au Young, however, wanted more than her small business. With encouragement from UH-Manoa and Windward officials, she enrolled in the college. "I was so afraid of failing again, I was so scared of my own shadow."
Determined to work "10 times harder" to make A grades, she ended up president of Phi Theta Kappa, the honor society of community colleges, and won an $8,000 scholarship. Building on her associate degree in liberal arts, she plans to enroll in social work at UH-Manoa. A program there helps students such as Au Young with book tapes, test centers and people who read aloud.
Yvette Malama, counselor for Windward's STAAR program, federally funded to help low-income and disabled students, called Au Young a campus leader with strong organizational skills who has spent many hours as a STAAR tutor.
"She rounds up a group of people and gets things done," Malama said. "She's able to rally support."
Labryanna Kubo, treasurer of Windward's Phi Theta Kappa, called Au Young "pretty amazing. She's got her hands in so many projects. She works with her heart."
What most impresses Windward journalism associate professor Libby Young is "the quiet dignity about her, and sense of assurance about what she wanted from her education. She's someone who has a real sensitivity for people, maybe due to the difficulties she overcame."
AU Young plans to get a Ph.D in social work, setting her sights on an Ivy League school at some point. And she's giving herself 15 years to start a center for disabled people on the Big Island, a place she believes needs such a program.
Wally Soares, president of Island Skill Gathering, is already talking to her about the possibilities. Soares teaches technology skills to disabled people, and Au Young is a part-time instructor for him.
"She has an entrepreneurial spirit. She needs to sharpen her blades and take what she knows to a place like the Big Island, which is very hungry for it," Soares said.
Au Young said helping people is more important than making money. She marvels at how clear her future has become since she went blind.
"As years go on, my vision is getting clearer and clearer."
