Hello everyone, I’m Lin Liuhan. You can also call me Lauren.

 

As a professional photographer, my life once revolved entirely around vision: the light and shadow in the lens, the composition in the viewfinder, and the moments captured when I pressed the shutter. These were my only ways of perceiving the world. Until last spring, on a dawn when I was waiting for the sunrise atop a mountain, a dark curtain suddenly obscured the vision in my left eye. It was retinal detachment. After the surgery, words from my doctor pushed me even deeper into the abyss: “You may never be able to work as a professional photographer again.”

 

At that time, I truly thought that I couldn’t go on living. I would not only become a “disabled person” but also lose my lifelong passion and source of income. I kept questioning why fate was so cruel, and I couldn’t see what was left of my future.

 

The turning point in my life came from Amy’s Women Empowerment, which is why I’m extremely grateful to stand here and share my story. At Amy's Women Empowerment, what I gained was not empty consolations like “It’s okay” or “Everything will get better,” nor did anyone try to downplay my situation by saying, “Vision loss isn’t that serious.” Instead, someone stayed with me for the first time, first helping me fully accept that I had lost half of my vision and then working with me to find new possibilities.

 

Here, I especially want to thank the organization for letting me meet Xiaoya and Wenjuan. We all have more or less vision problems. The organization didn’t let us get trapped in the label of “people with eye conditions” and wallow in self-pity; instead, it guided us to reconnect with the world in various ways. For example, we listened to the rustling of the wind through the leaves, stretched out our palms to feel the warmth of the sun flowing between our fingers, and touched the delicate texture of flower petals. Gradually, in daily life, I also learned to feel with my entire body and heart, not just with my eyes. This experience directly and powerfully shattered my desperate belief that losing vision meant losing the ability to perceive the world.

 

I began to re-recognize myself. My old perceptions were completely overturned, and I finally came to believe that the world had not closed its doors on me. Instead, it had presented itself to me in a gentler way. I am not a “flawed disabled person” but someone with a unique way of perception. More importantly, I never lost my core identity; I am still the photographer who loves capturing the world, recording moments, and expressing my innermost thoughts.

 

I still insist on recording and expressing, and I also help others freeze-frame their own stories. It’s just that my way of recording the world has gained many new dimensions. For example, I started keeping “sound diaries”: the continuous noisy shouts in the vegetable market, the light clink of coffee cups and saucers in cafes, and the moist smell of soil in the air after rain. All these have become new materials beyond my lens.

 

The truth I want to tell everyone is actually very simple: when the world mutes you in one way, life invites you to listen in every other way. Amy's Women Empowerment did not restore my vision, but it gave me something more precious: the ability to live a complete, even more abundant life despite limitations. I am no longer a wounded soldier fighting against flaws; I have become a multi-dimensional explorer of my own life.