Exodus Trekkers: About Affectionate, Godlike Love for Some Dogs (part 2) ...posted in 2022

Blind and Deaf , He Prays for a Friend and Gets a Dog, Then a Wife and Son , and Finally His Own Company

By Robert R. Schwarz

God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the

things which are strong ….that no man should boast

before God. ( Saint Paul to the Corinthians (I), 1:27 )

[Note: All spoken or written words attributed to Bapin

in this article he communicated either by the

tactile American Sign Language or a Telebraille

machine. ]

I This report is about a uniquely gifted blind-deaf man from India named Anidya "Bapin" Bhattachayya . My first encounter with him would become the most memorable, and it occurred in the Leader Dog School dining room of LeaderDogs for the Blind in Rochester Hills, Michigan. I was there on a magazine assignment in 1998 for Lions Clubs International, the world's largest volunteer service organization, which had formerly employed me for 13 years as its manager of leadership development.

Bapin and Dinah in training with LeaderDog expert Keith MacGregor

At eight round tables sat 22 blind men and women anxiously and silently waiting to be introduced to a new friend with whom they would live for the next ten or more years. Then, one by one, German Shepherds and Labrador Retrievers were led into the room by LeaderDog trainers and led to each of their new masters. Bapin was the only blind-deaf person in the room. The dogs were lying at their masters' feet, where they remained quietly with heads between paws . Hands reached down and searched for a head or back to stroke. The room was quiet, as if respecting a kind of sanctity of the moment. One man grabbed his dog's harness , and the two made their way to an old upright piano . Impromptu , the man began to play a cheerful melody. Sightless eyes moisten.

II A year earlier, Bapin, at age 26 , had been dealing with a sadness common to college students away from home for the first time; he was lonely and friendless. Though his fellow students were always signaling their willingness to do him a favor— often ineptly— "none of them were willing to go the distance of true friendship, " Bapin explained during one of our several ensuing interviews . He was preoccupied with his upcoming final exams , the climax of five years of study, most of it by reading Braille and living in a world without sound.

One afternoon he went to his dorm room and closed the door. He began thinking of boyhood conversations with his Hindu mother about his parents' god and, more recently, about his recent lunch with two teens from a Little Rock church . Using a tactile sign language where fingers were pressed to form letters on Bapin's palm, they had told him that God must come first before anything else.

That night, Bapin went to his knees, likely for the first time in his life. But soon he began doubting the rectitude of his prayerful behavior. He quickly rose to face the painful dilemma of telling or not telling his Hindu parents that he was thinking of becoming a Christian. Then he was reminded of something else those two teens had told him. Don’t worry about your parents. God will work in their heart, too. Again Bapin went to his knees . He prayed to have a "close friend. "

"Two Sundays later, " Bapin told me, "I answered an altar call from the church pastor and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. It changed my life overnight. There was so much peace. I began to ask God to 'see' and 'hear ' for me.' When he wrote his parents in India and shared his conversion, they rejoiced. "I didn't expect that !" Bapin exclaimed. He continued to pray hard for that close friend.

Bapin took his final exams in political science for his B.A. degree from the University of Arkansas. Stress mounted as he waited for test results. Being an outstanding student had won him a scholarship from the National Federation of the Blind. As he was sitting one day eating pizza in the university cafeteria , an excited staff member came to him and slapped him on the shoulder. Bapin learned he would soon have his "close friend" , though not exactly what he had prayed for . Neverthe less, this friend would be close--very close .

He name was "Chica" , a yellow Labrador retriever .

Unknown to Bapin, , news of his scholarship had caught the attention of the Rochester (Michigan ) Lions Club , one of several thousand clubs of Lions Clubs International (LCI ), the world's foremost supporters of Leader Dogs . Training for Bapin and Chica at the Leader Dog school in Rochester Hills would cost LCI $19,000. It was a charitable gift to Bapin.

Confused and stunned, Bapin rose from his chair and stood for a long moment to discern how an animal , especially a dog, could ever be a close friend. It would be a grueling lesson for him to learn, seeing that he was obviously an independent guy and knew nothing about dogs...

A Life Challenged at an EarlyAge

III Tragedy, then Another… Bapin's challenged life began at birth and was greatly worsened at age eight at a potato-roasting at a school campfire in India . A few miles away was the farmland village of Telari , where 85 percent of the surrounding population was illiterate and poverty-stricken . There Bapin was born deaf and later accidentally blinded in one eye while digging in the soil .

Bapin was sitting with fellow rugby team members who had just elected him team captain. The Bengali language of the team rang with cheer about their recent game victory. One team member, however, was smoldering with jealously and growing increasingly morose . He continued to stare at the fire, preoccupied with the thought that he, certainly not Bapin, should have been chosen captain. After all, how can you have a captain who is deaf and blind in one eye ? The boy suddenly leaped up , and a shovel scooped up several glowing coals and threw them at Bapin's face . It blinded this other eye.

In days ahead, Bapin and his parents kept asking where in the world do we get help for our deaf-blind son ? Certainly not near Telari or elsewhere. Friends and neighbors throughout the family's countryside saw no hope that Bapin's life would ever become productive and humanized.

The author interviewing Bapin with a Telebraille machine

Bapin during our initial interview several years ago, told me : "My blindness frustrated me because I did not understand how to express my problems, and became angry and mischievous . I often would sneak out of the house to make trouble while everyone was having a siesta. I would sometimes throw hay through my neighbors' windows. Other times I would lock their doors from outside by hooking up chains. Although I was troubled as a child, I found a little peace in creative expression. I developed a hobby by using manual skills to make statues of Indian gods and goddesses through woodworking and ceramics. Since my mother was a talented artist, she always offered to paint these statues for me."

Something else would often trouble him in future years : his inability to forgive the youth who destroyed his one remaining eye.

IV A Long Search for Help, Then a Long Journey… For four years Bapin's family searched unsuccessfully throughout India for a school equipped to educate a deaf-blind student. Then, in 1983, through the efforts of a kind aunt and his persevering father, who had become a school principal , Bapin received a scholarship to attend the Perkins School for the Blind (the oldest school for the blind in the United States ) in Watertown , Massachusetts. Airline tickets to America for Mr. Bhattacharyya and son cost the father one year's salary. "My father accompanied me to be my English-to- Bengali translator , " Bapin later wrote in a short biography. "All I knew was English alphabet letters and a few words such as 'I love you,' 'I want to go to the bathroom,' 'I want to eat,' and, 'I want to go to sleep.' Taking a journey halfway around the globe was an awakening adventure . But my life was completely changed from a life of darkness to light when I came to Perkins.

"Upon arrival at Perkins and entering my dorm, the first question I was asked, was whether I wanted to live alone or with my father. I told my father that I wanted to live by myself to force myself to learn English. From the next day on, I rolled up my sleeves to learn English, Braille, and sign language at the same time. My father also learned Braille and took courses to acquire new knowledge about how to work with deaf-blind children.

"I started to see a different world by meeting other students who also were deaf-blind, which encouraged me to adjust to my deaf-blindness. I never imagined that from a village with a large population living in poverty and illiteracy, that there could also be people in similar situations as myself who existed on this earth. The only drawback was that I could not communicate easily with these deaf-blind students because of my limited sign language."

Leaving his son under the guardianship of Bapin's English teacher , his father returned to India. During Bapin's years at Perkins and a subsequent year at Gallaudet University , a liberal arts university in Washington, D.C., Bapin developed a strong interest in helping blind and deaf people . "My enthusiasm to achieve higher education also continued," he told me. A few years later he became the first deaf-blind student at the University of Arkansas. Bapin, who today remains characteristically aggressive about learning new skills, soon persuaded the university to add Braille to its computer lab and to hire signers for lectures.

V Led by a Dog from Darkness to Light… After five years of university study that demanded much from Bapin , physically and mentally, he arrived at the Leader Dog school for training (some of which I was fortunate to observe close up ) . Before the students' arrival, the dogs had already received several weeks of preliminary training and an exhaustive screening process that had began soon after they were whelped by home-based volunteer dog lovers...

When I interviewe Bapin now, he is in his late 30's . He has tufts of black hair and stands five-feet-four-inches . WhenI I tossed him the compliment that I saw him as six-feet tall in courage, he laughed—in Braille. What is striking about Bapin is the speed with which he walks and thinks--never mind the blindness and deafness. One of his interpreters told me, " Bapin can read Braille as fast as a secretary can type. "

The arduous, military-like training that would last 24 days for Bapin and his assigned dog, Chica , began at 6 a.m., when all dogs were taken to an outdoor run to relieve themselves. An hour later, a training cadre of more than a dozen men and women attired in khaki shorts , maneuvered students and dogs out to the 14-acre school complex.

Students and dogs first learn hand signals: "forward," "left," "right," "sit," "down," "stay," and "walk faster." Later, the canines will learn to guide their masters away from oncoming cars and construction zones and other hazards such as tree branches overhanging sidewalks. Each dog must acquire "a sense of responsibility" for his or her master . But more critical—and often painfully slow— is that master and dog absolutely must to learn what to expect from each other. And before a Leader dog can be released to its new owner, both dog and the owner must pass a final test. What no one apparently told Bapin is how critically important it is for the master to trust his dog.

I kept my eye on Bapin and Chica as both strained to coordinate each other's movements . Other students relied on the trainer's voice commands. Bapin, however, was forced to react fast in reading the sign language which his trainer , Keith MacGregor , communicated to him with fingers that pressed hard and often on Bapin's palm (as if the hand was a notebook ). Once, a substitute trainer for Bapin was called in because MacGregor's shoulder was in pain due to the prolonged downward force used by his fingers to sign on Bapin's palm. I was told that MacGregor at the time was likely the world's only guide dog trainer skilled in tactile signing.

I asked MacGregor , " Does Chica know that Bapin is blind ?"

"I believe that Leader dogs know something is different about someone who can't see, " he replied. Melissa Holbrook Pierson, author of the book The Secret History of Kindness : Learning from How Dogs Learn , wrote, " Though dogs have been our best friends for tens of thousands of years, they still read us far more skillfully than we read them. "

Bapin and Chica and the others closed their training day with a lecture at 8 p.m. Everyone rested on Sunday; some students went to church, but without their dogs.

After Six Days of Training Comes a Crisis

Six days into the training, Bapin begins to frown as we began "conversing" via his Telebraille. He is obviously worried and tells me: " I took the college exams ten days ago and do not know if I passed. " As he begins another sentence, the Telebraille malfunctions. Bapin has a moment of angry panic, wondering how long his voice medium will take to repair. I refrained from telling him about a major crisis now developing .

MacGregor had told me at lunch that he had been noticing Chica was sometimes refusing to lead , causing Bapin to doubt Chica's ability to lead. " Truth is, " MacGregor said, " he mistakenly expects his dog to walk in a straight line like a robot and never to pause to sniff something ." He also speculated—but hadn't yet told Bapin—that Chica might be over-reacting to the strangeness she senses from human deafness. Solving this problem is urgent, MacGregor said , for both dog and master now faced being dropped from the training program.

Two days later , MacGregor approaches me shaking his head. "You won't believe this," he said. " Chica is Bapin's very first experience with any dog! . My guess is that bonding with a dog is emotionally alien to this young man from India . "

The insight came too late. Chica was dismissed and , according to program policy, would not ever be considered again for Leader dog training. I visited Bapin in his room that night. My friend was obviously crestfallen yet exuded an indomitable spirit that defied his awesome handicap. "I was hit hard and I miss her," he said. "I was slow to understand what a relationship to a dog really means . I had never felt this kind of emotion for an animal. I found myself loving her, yet I didn't keep a balance between this love and her need for discipline."

News came the next day that Bapin had passed his final college exams. Between 1993 and 1998, the university had presented him five various service awards . "I tried to be happy, but could not," he said.

MacGregor persuaded director Bill Hansen to give Bapin another opportunity . Bapin waxed joyous when introduced to Dinah, a 21-month-old, 64-pound yellow Lab . She had been returned to Leader Dogs for the Blind three months ago by an individual who had diligently raised her as part of the school's volunteer puppy-raising program .

Dinah and Bapin worked well together , though the vital bonding process took longer than the normal ten days because Dinah could not hear any voice command from her master. Graduation would require Bapin and Dinah to pass a final test to prove that the two of them could work with mutual trust. Dinah would be required to obey all commands she had learned from MacGregor and which were signaled on her halter by Bapin . I knew Bapin was a bit head-strong but did not know how he would meet the challenge of deferring to a dog's willful instincts rather than his own.

Bapin taking a test walk before the critical final test that will decide if he can keep Dinah

On the day of the test, I drive from my home near Chicago to be with Bapin. MacGregor, Bapin, Dinah, and I converge on a Saturday afternoon at a traffic-laden street corner in downtown Rochester . We are tense. Dinah, I suspect, is sensing that something extra-doggy is about to happen. "This trust thing ," MacGregor says while opening his van door for Bapin and Dinah, "can be a life or death issue when, for example, both are about to cross a busy street intersection but their instincts are demanding different behaviors. Trust can be difficult enough for a blind person, but for a person who is also deaf, it sometimes seems impossible. "

He and I exchange anxious glances while observing Bapin and Dinah navigate through pedestrians down a sidewalk towards another busy intersection where the test will occur. We stay put. I hear MacGregor again mumble to himself that he will have to fail both Bapin and Dinah if they can't develop this mutual trust. "This guy is a very independent dude," he mumbles for the second time.

So far all is going well ; Dinah skirts his master around an overhanging, curbside tree branch. The two now halt at the corner curb. MacGregor has purposely not told Bapin that the pedestrian crossing for this intersection, unlike the right angle crossing on which they were trained to cross, must be followed diagonally from corner to corner.

Rochester townspeople are used to seeing blind pedestrians and their Leader Dogs and will often help them cross streets . But not today. We wait about a hundred feet away , watching for Bapin's first go-ahead tug on Dinah's halter. He tugs, which commands Dinah to proceed straight ahead, but not to enter the diagonal pedestrian crossing . Dinah refuses to obey her master's command and tugs to the right, towards the diagonal crossing ! ( "We want our dogs to use 'intelligent disobedience' , stubborn enough to say no when necessary, " Leader trainer Will Henry will later tell me. ) Bapin firmly pulls Dinah back. I see him wince at this clash of wills; night and day for more than three weeks he invested all his training skills to win this test for Bapin and Dinah.

A scene from a day ago flashes before me: it’s Bapin and Dinah taking a nap together on Bapin's bed, and it now makes me ask, Has Bapin again , as with Chica, failed to discipline his novitiate affection for a dog, failed to grasp what MacGregor had imparted to him about canine psychology ?

Dinah tugs twice more to her right. "Damn it," MacGregor exclaims, " he believes Dinah is confused. He thinks he's got to do the leading ! "

Our eyes stay on Bapin , who seems frozen in an inexpressible thought. Then, being the professional Leader dog she is , Dinah once more moved forward—into the diagonal crossing.

Bapin follows her .

Best of friends

VI Bapin's Skills Put to Work for the Blind and Deaf … Nine months later, Bapin was working full-time as an adaptive technology instructor at the Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths & Adults in Sands Point, New York. "He can take a computer apart and put it back together again," Bapin's supervisor said. In his Internet-posted biography ( http://www.bapin.info/ ). Bapin wrote that this was his dream job, "a perfect opportunity for me to move ahead in my life where I can bring myself at the hands of every deaf-blind person worldwide who is hungry for golden opportunities."

Dinah was never further away from him than a tug on her harness .

I didn't hear from Bapin until eight years later when I asked him for an update on his life . " At this moment," he replied, "Dinah is resting on her bed in one corner of my office." The two had just returned on a jet from a conference in Los Angeles. "She loves flying all the time. She even went to Kolkata [Calcutta] with me twice, and all of my family members loved having her there. Dinah is now ten and a half and loves going to work all the time, so I don’t know when she will be ready to retire." Bapin also mentioned that his dog's spleen had to be removed because of a benign tumor.

On April 4, 2008, in an email sent at 12:40 a.m. to more than 50 friends, Bapin related how Dinah had collapsed a few hours earlier due to a cancerous tumor around her heart. He was now working in the San Francisco branch office of the Helen Keller Center. "Today, Dinah led me home from my office, 12 blocks away ," he wrote. "She ate her dinner and soon thereafter collapsed. I am praying and hoping for a few more days Dinah can enjoy living."

Dinah spent a few days in an animal hospital and then was brought home. Another email followed: "I came home during lunchtime to check on her. Dinah still greets me when I get home, and she gets excited with the tail wagging hard, the usual Dinah. I took her outside for her to do her business. She dragged me to walk around an entire block. "

Dinah's medical bills so far had personally cost Bapin $3,500. Wanting his companion to live out her last days in a familiar environment, Bapin took Dinah back to New York to stay with his former landlord and co-worker at the Helen Keller Center. To avoid Dinah being left too long without him, he flew monthly each month ( from May until October ) from San Francisco to New York to consult with a veterinarian . Bapin emailed me on May 30: "She has not yet shown any decline in the guiding skills as she tries to guide me even on her leash when I am using my cane."

In October, Bapin posted on his webpage: "It's very sad to let you know that Dinah passed away on October 14th. She collapsed at 3:45 p.m. as my co-worker James Feldman was trying to make her stand up from her bed under his office's desk. She would not stand up and needed to be lifted onto a cart by two other colleagues, John Baroncelli and Robert Pena. She was taken to Robert's car and driven away to the Animal Medical Center in NYC. The doctors found that the fluids in the sac around Dinah's heart filled up again. They had to flush out the fluids but 15 minutes later the fluids filled up fast. There was no other option to curing the tumor, and Dinah's primary doctor recommended to have her put down. James and Robert were at the hospital with Dinah and I was in my office here in San Francisco. I was on the phone with the doctor with an interpreter, and we talked for a long time. We all decided to let Dinah go at 6:30 p.m. Dinah will be cremated and her ashes will be put into an urn."

Adjusting to daily living without a Leader dog was slow and demanding for Bapin , who now navigated with a cane . Demand for his technical skills at the Helen Keller Center increased with his now added role of trainer for deaf and blind people. But Bapin , I was told, remained his quick-witted, impatient self with any project he undertook; among his several innovations at the Center were Braille-capturing radio instruments that emitted emergency notices on National Public Radio to individuals like himself. He terribly missed Dinah, but his frequent travels as a spokesman for the Center offered him a different kind of companionship. "When you are deaf-blind, technology is an ever-present companion," he told me. " I travel with a laptop for e-mail, phone and Internet access . I use a G.P.S.-equipped Braille note-taker to get information about my surroundings. To communicate with others, I have a Screen Braille Communicator with two sides: one in Braille, which I can read and the other, an L.C.D. screen with a keyboard for someone who is sighted."

At the sea shore with bride Sook Hee and--of course--Dinah as " Best Dog"

Yet again he prayed again for a "close friend."

VII Marriage to a Deaf Woman and Then a Son…. At the conferences where he had been asked to demonstrate his new adaptive technology products, Bapin kept running into a deaf Korean woman, Sook Hee Choi—. "We were developing feelings for each other," Bapin told me over the telephone. Sook Hee was a slender woman with black eyes and a melodic voice. She wore glasses, dressed, professionally and spoke her native tongue and a bit of English.

Knowing Bapin , I imagined he must have thought that marriage between a deaf-blind man and a deaf woman would parallel that crisis with Dinah at that Rochester traffic intersection. Then came his email: "I am now engaged to get married. Sook Hee lives in San Francisco and works at the Lighthouse for the Blind there, and she is a wonderful woman! A wedding date has yet to be fixed. Do you remember that I told you…how I wanted Dinah to help me find a woman? Now, many thanks to her for finding me a girl!"

Sook Hee accepted her fiancé's invitation to accompany him to India to celebrate his brother's birthday. That same year, the couple were married in the San Francisco city hall. Eleven months later—on Sook Hee's birthday—Bapin and wife became parents of a healthy son, Navin.

VIII A shining moment of Bapin's professional life came August 3, 2015 when he stood on stage before an audience of several hundred people at the first-ever International Deaf-Blind Exposition at a major Las Vegas hotel. When he was introduced as the CEO of an adaptive technology company that now bore his name : Bapin Group LLC [www.bapingrouponline.com/ ] Today , Bapin's company is a not-for-profit firm which provides instruments for deaf and blind people in schools, government agencies, and businesses around the world .

Unfortunately, on that stage Bapin could not hear the roar of applause. But as the applause continued, he was feeling the emotion of a celebrity as he read a description of this event being signed onto his palm by his interpreter . Then Bapin reached down to a dog sitting attentively at his side and vigorously stroked it in a display of gratitude. This was Walter, a five-year-old , 100-pound Labrador retriever, Bapin's new friend…

It is a May day, and Bapin , Navin , and Walter leave their El Cerrito home and begin a five-minute walk to the train station for a two-minute ride followed by a ten-minute walk to Navin's public school . "He's learning English and Korean in his kindergarten class," Bapin tells me . " He's really smart and loves technology. " Some days , Bapin and Walter might ride a train for 35 minutes to Bapin's office in Berkeley or travel to Fremont where Bapin teaches a deaf-blind interpreting class at Oholone College .

I once asked Bapin if Navin senses that his father is blind . " Sometimes he says to his mother, ' Dad can't see. ' But he knows to clasp my hand for me to get him something. He also knows he needs to guide me. He has good communication with us and we make sure he is exposed to a lot of different experiences. With his mother, he uses sign language and is learning to speak to her in Korean . She also reads his lips . " Bapin then paused to think: " I have a higher priority for him . We teach him how to be respectful to his parents and other people. But I've got to figure out how to help him more. I have to make more time for him because I'm very busy and want to make a good relationship with him. He's a sweet little kid."

On weekends Hook See might travel to her husband's office to manage his company's product distribution . But today she is in her backyard garden hoeing out weeds and uprooting some early vegetables. She is planning for a special meal tonight to celebrate the good news that her son will, for sure, enter the first grade in September. The sight of a lone seagull flying away from a neighbor's yard delights her ; she recalls the pleasure of having seen her son wave at a gull here last summer. I asked what kind of bird it was. Hook See did her best to name it .

The family's two-bedroom apartment is very old. "It is like any other house, " Bapin says . "It has a stove, oven, and microwave oven. " Unlike most homes, it has an alarm system which vibrates his pager when the phone or doorbell rings or if there is an intruder.

For that special dinner tonight, Sook Hee has decorated the table with colorful , hand-stitched napkins and a table cloth from her native county; they were gifts from her mother when she lived here with Bapin and Hook See to help them through the early challenges of their marriage and her daughter's pregnancy. The dishware is equally colorful, brought back from India by Bapin and Hook See when they visited Bapin's parents .

Bapin is at the front door and unlocks it. He and Walter enter . Bapin is bone-weary, mind-weary. It's been a tedious, often hectic nine-hour day of communicating many business matters via his Telebraille and the repeated tactile signing between him and a colleague. There also was his two-hour delay in taking Walter outside for a required walk, followed by that frantic search for that latest piece of alpha electronic equipment an employee had placed in a remote section of the office and not telling Bapin about it. In this moment, Bapin's only desire is to release Walter from his harness and sink into a favorite chair. No thinking, no communication, no task.

I saw him once like this after Dinah had been washed out of LeaderDog training and he was exhausted from worrying about his final college exams and the uncertainly of ever having another Leader dog. His thoughts as he now sat in that chair and which he would later express to me were: "I need to learn to deal with people who don't understand that I don't need them to pity me because I'm deaf and blind or to treat me any less that any other human or say ,' Oh, he's not very smart because he's blind and deaf. ' "

His family greet him with tight hugs. Navin throws his arms around his father's thigh . Bapin caresses his son's head , then reaches down to release Walter from his harness; this signals the Lab that he's now off-duty . Bapin smells pizza and garden vegetables ala Korean— his very favorites . But Bapin is too tired to even smile. " It is special tonight ," Hook See signs to him , "because our son is going soon to be a first grader. We are happy and want to celebrate." Bapin grimaces. He has forgotten all about this event and that toy gift for his son.

Hook See and Navin tell him how beautiful the table setting is . Bapin sits down at the table and slowly glides a finger across the dinner plate. He hopes his fatigue will not overshadow any of the love he is feeling for his family. The family prays.

Bapin had at one time prayed for the willingness to forgive that boy who had at the school camp fire maliciously destroyed his remaining sight. I don't know if that willingness ever came.

But halfway through dinner, Bapin becomes visibly regenerated. He speaks [ signs ] to his family with cheerful and affectionate words. Bapin would later tell me: " Bob, I found the right woman. She really takes care of me. We cherish each other. Sometimes we'll have bad days and sometimes good days. We really want to be better for our son."

During our last interview, I asked his opinion about the current American culture and his own spirituality. "I feel bad," he replied, "that so many people have lost their moral values. Well, you know, as we get closer to the end of the world, as the Bible says, we will see more and more of that. Sometimes I wish I could do things my way, but then God tells me: No, my way. I read the Bible, I pray before I go to bed , but I can't go to church very often because in California it's hard to find a good church that has interpreters. "

Encouraging my friend to say more, he says: " I cherish life every day. I try to do the best things for other people, through God's help. But sometimes I feel I don't have enough power or energy . Then God helps me. "

Two things make him happy: "family and exotic good food." And sad ? It's world hunger and people with disabilities who have to live with discrimination. .

Dinner over, Bapin walks eagerly to a small adjoining room for an hour of woodwork; this time it's replacing a broken chair leg . After that, there's an unfinished cabinet he's been constructing. He loves it.

IX Valuable Insights about God, Country, and Family… Nearing the end of writing this, my mind returns to that family dinner and of Walter fast asleep under the dining room table with his harness hanging on the wall by the door. I began to think deeply about Dinah , too, and the five dogs in my own long life who have been my "close friends," particularly two German Shepherds , Luther and Moses . Their loyalty , obedience, and lack of moods give me new and valuable insights about my relationship to God, country, and what defines a family . I also recall asking Bapin what Dinah and Walter have taught him. He said, "I understand God better now because of Dinah and Walter. The reason is that God makes wonderful creatures, and that gives me compassion. Walter is God's gift to me. And I can see how a dog can understand me. "

And I can see Bapin at that dinner table with Hook See and Navin , communicating love to each other as best they can. I hear Bapin telling me , " Sometimes when I have frustrations, Walter helps me calm down and tell myself, Get over it ! Then I feel more positive about life. " When I hear Bapin say , " I want to give of my self ," it reminds me of an exhortation of a 19th Century holy man whom Bapin cited at the bottom of an email he sent me: Don't let your life be sterile. Be useful .

The light which Bapin's life shines on the path through my twilight years is also reflected by a title of a book written in the 1960's by a former chaplain of a renowned rehabilitation center. It is LET GO AND LET GOD. That's exactly what a blind-deaf man had to do with a dog at a traffic-laden intersection to become fully alive .