'Ray Peters's Can-Do, Go-Get-'Em Attitude'
Saturday May 09, 2009
Letters to the Editor
The Washington Post, Sept. 17, 1995
Paul Duggan's Sept. 8 Style article about Raymond Peters ("Eye for an Eye") captured Mr. Peters's acerbic but loving personality.
I first met Ray Peters in March 1973, as the scared mother of a scared 4-year-old boy. Our son, Christian, had lost his right eye in February to retinoblastoma, a rapidly growing cancerous tumor of the retina. "Smoky" as he later told us to call him, had been recommended to us by Harold Rodman, the ophthalmologist who performed Chris's surgery. When we first got to his office, we did not know what to expect. By the time we left, Smoky had us rolling on the floor.
Over the next few years, as we anxiously awaited the possibility of the tumor showing up in Chris's remaining eye, it was Mr. Peters who gave us the hope and confidence so necessary to buoy our spirits. His invitation - no, insistence!-that his "patients" actually watch all of the phases of making of the ocular prosthesis is a healing step in itself. And his personality carries you the rest of the way. By the time Chris received a clean bill of health, he had long since become a normal kid in every aspect of life. He was playing baseball and soccer; he took archery lessons at summer camp. And life has continued full and active for him.
Mr. Peter's work still gets many compliments of which he is unaware. Friends who have known us since before Chris's cancer will say: "Which eye is fake? I forget!" And folks who have just learned that one eye is a prosthetic will ask, "Really? Which one?"
A final example of how Mr. Peters's philosophy continues through his patients is an event that occurred when Chris was in the fifth grade. A 7-year-old sibling of a classmate had lost an eye in a playground accident. The little girl was psychologically traumatized and would not even go to school, much less allow herself to be fitted with a prosthesis. A friend asked Chris if he would talk with the girl. I asked Chris if he would mind; he said "Let's invite her over to the house." She and her mother came. She was very shy and kept her face lowered and covered. Chris told her that he "had a fake eye, would she like to see it?" With that, they disappeared into the bathroom. Soon, her Mom and I heard them laughing. He had taken his eye out and had shown her how he could clean it, put it back in, etc. She was sold! The following week, she went to Mr. Peters for her fitting. And she followed Chris around as if he were a hero for the rest of the year. Chris did this as a pupil of Ray Peters's: Ray had shown him how a positive attitude about his "disability" could help others.
Mr. Duggan's article caught Ray Peters's Can-Do, Go-Get-'Em Attitude beautifully; if only the rest of us could always be so positive and inspirational in our relationships. Even though our son is married and lives elsewhere now, Ray Peters will always be a number one person in our lives.
CAROLEE METCALFE WENDE
Seabrook, Md.
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The Washington Post, Sept. 17, 1995
Paul Duggan's Sept. 8 Style article about Raymond Peters ("Eye for an Eye") captured Mr. Peters's acerbic but loving personality.
I first met Ray Peters in March 1973, as the scared mother of a scared 4-year-old boy. Our son, Christian, had lost his right eye in February to retinoblastoma, a rapidly growing cancerous tumor of the retina. "Smoky" as he later told us to call him, had been recommended to us by Harold Rodman, the ophthalmologist who performed Chris's surgery. When we first got to his office, we did not know what to expect. By the time we left, Smoky had us rolling on the floor.
Over the next few years, as we anxiously awaited the possibility of the tumor showing up in Chris's remaining eye, it was Mr. Peters who gave us the hope and confidence so necessary to buoy our spirits. His invitation - no, insistence!-that his "patients" actually watch all of the phases of making of the ocular prosthesis is a healing step in itself. And his personality carries you the rest of the way. By the time Chris received a clean bill of health, he had long since become a normal kid in every aspect of life. He was playing baseball and soccer; he took archery lessons at summer camp. And life has continued full and active for him.
Mr. Peter's work still gets many compliments of which he is unaware. Friends who have known us since before Chris's cancer will say: "Which eye is fake? I forget!" And folks who have just learned that one eye is a prosthetic will ask, "Really? Which one?"
A final example of how Mr. Peters's philosophy continues through his patients is an event that occurred when Chris was in the fifth grade. A 7-year-old sibling of a classmate had lost an eye in a playground accident. The little girl was psychologically traumatized and would not even go to school, much less allow herself to be fitted with a prosthesis. A friend asked Chris if he would talk with the girl. I asked Chris if he would mind; he said "Let's invite her over to the house." She and her mother came. She was very shy and kept her face lowered and covered. Chris told her that he "had a fake eye, would she like to see it?" With that, they disappeared into the bathroom. Soon, her Mom and I heard them laughing. He had taken his eye out and had shown her how he could clean it, put it back in, etc. She was sold! The following week, she went to Mr. Peters for her fitting. And she followed Chris around as if he were a hero for the rest of the year. Chris did this as a pupil of Ray Peters's: Ray had shown him how a positive attitude about his "disability" could help others.
Mr. Duggan's article caught Ray Peters's Can-Do, Go-Get-'Em Attitude beautifully; if only the rest of us could always be so positive and inspirational in our relationships. Even though our son is married and lives elsewhere now, Ray Peters will always be a number one person in our lives.
CAROLEE METCALFE WENDE
Seabrook, Md.