When Sight Does Not Make the Man

David Stayer was literally pronounced dead before he was born.

When his mother went into labor more than three months early in April 1940, the doctor at the hospital wrote out a death certificate.  Stayer was born weighing one and a half pounds, he spent more than six months in the hospital, and it took him till his first birthday to reach five pounds.   People thought his mother was carrying around a doll. 

Stayer, who has lived in Merrick for nearly four decades, has also been blind since birth.  But Stayer's story is not of tragedy, but one of not just overcoming challenges, but soaring past them.    

"I believe that one of the purposes I have is to show people that blindness doesn't have to stop you from accomplishing things," said Stayer, from the couch of the Merrick home he has shared with wife of 37 years, Lori.  

The Town of Hempstead recently honored Stayer at its "Make A Difference" awards ceremony, which recognized 13 people who have dedicated their lives to enriching the lives of others. 

Stayer, the first disabled professional ever hired by Nassau County, worked for 37 years as a senior medical social worker at the Meadowbrook Nassau University Medical Center. 

"People would come into the hospital concerned with how they looked," Stayer recalled, "but I couldn't tell that.  I've always tried to use my blindness as a positive."  

Born in Baltimore, Stayer moved to New York at the age of four because his parents believed the state offered better opportunities for blind children.  The oldest of five children, Stayer graduated from Brooklyn College and then went on to the New York University Graduate School of Social Work, where of the three blind students admitted he was the only one to finish the program in two years. 

Told to get a job before his second year of graduate school, Stayer had to call 40 hospitals before he got an interview, a victim of a society that stigmatizes blindness. 

"I think there are worse things than not seeing," Stayer said, "but most people don't.  People fear AIDS and then blindness."   

Stayer met Lori at a singles gathering in 1971. 

"She saw me before I saw her," said Stayer, cracking up laughing and slapping his hand onto his black trousers.

A year later, the Stayers were married.  They are expecting their 11th grandchild in March.  Their two daughters are due to deliver a day apart, one with her ninth child and the other with her second. 

Lori Stayer said her husband rarely gets depressed about anything and she only gets upset when others seem to take pity on her. 

"One time in the supermarket, a lady said to me, 'I feel so sorry for you,' and I'm thinking, 'Why?" she said. 

David Stayer, 69, retired in 2002, but he keeps busy as the president of both the National Federation of the Blind Human Services Division and the Greater Long Island Chapter of the NFB. 

Stayer also leads the Freeport Community Chorale, with whom he entertains the masses with his booming tenor voice. 

"He is a wonderful musician," said Jeff Bienenfeld, who nominated Stayer for the town's "Make A Difference" award.  "We can hear him singing from the back of the synagogue.  He tries not to overwhelm everyone, but somehow everyone hears him."

Bienenfeld called Stayer "tremendously inspirational to all of us" and one of the most delightful people he has ever met. 

Stayer said he sometimes still faces discrimination when he's out with his wife and people talk to her and ignore him or at restaurants when the waiter asks Lori, "What does he want?"

But Stayer does not want sympathy; he just wants to continue showing the world that sight does not make the man. 

"I've accepted it as part of my life," Stayer said of his blindness, "and the best way to combat that is to prove what I can do."  

For someone born weighing about as much as two apples, Stayer has certainly grown into a much bigger, and inspirational, man.