Our family was so proud to find out that my husband, Keith’s, cornea donation was able to help restore your sight. He would’ve been so happy to know that he’d helped. (That’s him in the picture)

Sight was an especially important sense to him and he did his best to take good care of his eyes. He hated his optometrist appointments because he was never a fan of his eyes being dilated, but he sucked it up and went every time like clockwork. Making sure to keep a good eye (pardon the pun—of which he used many) on their maintenance.

He used his eyes for his work and his passions. Keith was a writer with a passion for words that cherished every library card he ever got and every list he ever made. He wrote often and preferred to write his first drafts in longhand. He finished a children’s book that’s pending publication and struggled with completing his adult fantasy novel due to his health and the medications that affected his ability to concentrate, but he never gave up. And to say Keith was an avid reader would be an understatement. He curated an enviable collection of books, read multiple books at a time with normally a fiction and non-fiction in play at the same time, and often read to me—which was always a treat.

His passion for music and the arts can be attested to by the abundance of museums visited worldwide, the years of attending plays in various locations and venues (including quite a run of Oregon Shakespeare Festival plays over the years), his efforts to expand his musical instrument playing abilities (especially guitar and ukulele), the sheer volume of live concerts he attended, and the variety of music he would listen to, dance to, and share with others.

Keith’s eyes have seen major artworks in The Smithsonian, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Louvre, the Vatican, The Musée d’Orsay, National Gallery of Art, the Van Gogh Museum, and the British Museum to name just a few from all the museums he was sure to include in our itineraries during all of our travels (he was the planner, I was the logistics person). He took me (and our son sometimes) to far more museums than I actually thought existed, bless him.

Speaking of traveling–we’d scrape together savings and piggy-back on work trips to live life to its fullest through travel. He was a world traveler and citizen that embraced diversity. He and his eyes went to all 50 states, 30 countries, five continents, and our travel ultimately was only limited by the worldwide COVID pandemic. He was a fearless adventurer as evidenced by his pilgrimage of El Camino de Santiago (as pictured to the left) 10 years after being diagnosed with a long-term lung condition (not contagious!) that ultimately contributed to his passing (after he had a double lung transplant himself). He was even working with me on an itinerary for our next trip just a few days before he passed.

A particularly special trip for us was when we joined a group from Washington and Oregon that flew into New York City a month after 9/11. Keith & I wanted to do something tangible to help the city in their recovery. We ended up being part of the largest organized group to visit Manhattan right after 9/11 (62 flights!) just after they opened flights back up and the city was desperate for tourists to return. They’d had a huge financial hit, but also were traumatized. This city was in desperate need of compassion and the company our group gave it. We’d heard about this opportunity very last-minute, but when I talked it over with Keith, he took all of two seconds to say, “Let’s do it!” It was a poignant and humbling experience that really highlighted Keith’s compassion for his fellow humans. Everywhere we went in that town (including marching in the Columbus Day parade), we would have complete strangers walking up to us crying and hugging us and thanking us for coming. Not exactly something you’d typically expect from your average New Yorker. We would reminisce about this trip (among others) for the rest of our lives together. And recall how full our hearts were from all the interactions we had.

He liked to observe life around us and share those observations with friends through photos, postcards (hand written with tiny, fine print to fit in as much as he could on the card), and just sharing his stories. We’d sit in parks during our travels, eat lunch, and watch all the wonderful people moving about their days. He’d be impressed by their performances (we had no idea how many mimes one could see in a lifetime), their obvious caring for others (a mom wiping her child’s face, a dad sharing a bicycle ride, an older couple sitting on their favorite bench holding hands (like we would)), and just the whole hustle and bustle.

He loved to bird watch. He’d go to bird and wildlife sanctuaries, far off exotic islands, popular bird sighting spots along rivers & lakes, put out bird feeders—whatever he could to see the next bird he hadn’t seen before. Like many birdwatchers he kept a list of the birds he’d seen and it was a pretty long one. And when he didn’t recognize a bird, he would jot down a description and draw its picture (they seldom stuck around to have their photos taken) so he could find them in his bird books later on. Whether it was the great blue herons, great egrets, pileated woodpeckers, crows & ravens, owls, a multitude of ducks, and bald eagles from here in the Northwest; the scarlet ibises from Trinidad & Tobago; the bottomless pigeons in New York City parks; or the cockatoos and cormorants in Australia—he appreciated every single one. And he sucked me right into it with him—it was great!

Keith used his eyes for his hobbies, too. He collected bookplates (especially historic ones), stamps (his dad was a postman and his mom got him started), postcards, and concert tickets among other things. He was a big fan of collecting paper-type paraphernalia. He said they traveled better and weren’t as heavy as collecting cast iron skillets or hood ornaments.

We hope that you are having opportunities to capture your own new and good memories with some help from your restored eyesight. It’s just so very special knowing that his donation contributed to such a special change in someone’s life.