There were three of us: Joyce, myself and her handsome two-year-old Black Lab Jason, her companion and guide dog, sitting in the sun room of her new condo. The room was bright and nicely furnished, with windows overlooking Southport Drive and the traffic moving through the main entrance. Side windows looked out on heavy trucks coming and going from the construction area on Grey Hawk Drive. Joyce could see none of it; she has been visually impaired since 1990. But that has not meant being either helpless or dependent.

Joyce Chasson & Jason

        Joyce's father was an engineer who, after several career moves, settled his family in Pleasantville, New York. She attended college in Boston and graduated from Boston University's School of Management. "There were seven women and 200 men in my class," she says, "In those days, women were not expected to study business subjects. I met my husband John at BU. 

        "After graduation I worked for Houghton Mifflin in Boston. John graduated after me and then worked for Standard Oil of California before being drafted into the Army. We were stationed in Germany, I worked for the Red Cross and we traveled all over Europe. In 1972, after his parents retired to the Cape, we moved to the Cape, too. We bought a bar called the Mooring on Ocean Street in Hyannis, expanded it into a restaurant and for many years it was very successful."        

         Joyce has a genetic disease called retinitis pigmentosa, which causes gradual blindness through the deterioration of the retinal cells. Somewhere along the line, someone in her family carried that gene, and when two carriers get together there is a one in four chance of passing it on to your children. Some people develop it in childhood, others later, depending upon the strand. Joyce developed symptoms after returning from Germany.

        "The doctor at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital who diagnosed the disease never told me I would be blind eventually" she says, "but mentioned that by age 40 I might have some problems reading." The disease and its implications were not well understood at that time. Joyce was 28 when her daughter Alexandria was born and had to give up driving by the time Alexandria was four. Light, darkness, sun, shadows all created problems and she didn't feel safe driving a young child around. She was also afraid of hitting a cyclist or pedestrian on the side of the road. "Of all the things I have missed over the years because of my blindness," she says, "being able to drive ranks near the top."

         In 1990, when Alexandria was 10, Joyce and her husband divorced. "Alex was a good athlete but my inability to drive made it very difficult to get her to practices and other activities. I wasn't able to help her with homework, but she was independent and very responsible. When it was time to apply to colleges, she did it on her own. I'm very proud of her. She is married now with three little boys and a great job. I don't know whether it was my blindness and the need for her to take responsibility or what but those traits carried over into her adulthood."

          Joyce led an active life despite her lack of vision, becoming a good skier and sailor. Through the Carroll Center, she joined the crew representing the United States in the first Blind International Sailing Regatta in New Zealand in 1991. "We competed against other blind crews from all over the world," she says. "We came in fourth and received a letter of recognition from President George Herbert Bush. I competed for several more years but eventually didn't have time to do it anymore. I even ran the Falmouth Road Race in the late 70s although I had only limited vision."  

          At one point, before passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Joyce enrolled in a psychology course at Cape Cod Community College, thinking about pursuing a master's degree in counseling. "I quickly realized that there were limited services for students with disabilities because that population was quite small. I seemed to know more about services for the disabled than most of the guidance staff. Several courses and much volunteer work later, I got my first part-time job at the college, working with women on welfare. I loved that job and the women because they were committed to helping themselves and their children. I couldn't relate to their financial situation but I could relate to many of their personal losses." 

          While serving on a college search committee for a new dean, Joyce met Grace Grossman, chair of the Board of Trustees and a member of the influential Grossman family of Massachusetts. "Grace was a wonderful woman who didn't care what your position was, she treated everyone equally. She and I began to talk about the college's services for students with disabilities and I told her about my vision for centralizing and expanding these services. 

          "One day, Grace introduced me to an attorney representing the estate of a woman named Alice O'Neill, which was looking to donate money to the college. Grace suggested that they establish a center for students with disabilities. As a result, the estate donated a substantial amount of money to establish the O'Neill Center for Disability Services in 1992, and I was appointed its first director. I was thrilled. We grew it from nothing to serve over 400 students. I remained as director until I retired in 2008. It was just a wonderful experience.

          "If you're blind," Joyce says, "you develop strategies to get through the daily chores of life. Things like sending mail, shopping, paying bills, matching clothes, which most people don't give a second thought, take organization and a good memory. I have wonderful friends but try very hard not to depend on them for errands and appointments. I also have a shopper who takes me out once a week to buy food and run errands. What I save by not owning and maintaining a car allows me to pay for someone to take me where I need to go. It's a trade off."

          Joyce lived in Osterville for 42 years but grew tired of managing and worrying about her property. She had heard of Southport and had many friends in Mashpee, so she came with her sister Judy to have a look -- and returned the next day with a deposit. She moved here in October 2014.

         "I wanted something new," she says, "and my condo has everything I wanted: southern exposure, end unit, close to the Village Center. Ron Bonvie was very helpful. He asked what I needed. I told him the only thing I really needed was a talking thermostat and he took care of it. A couple of other issues were all resolved satisfactorily. Everyone here is very nice, but people often try to overhelp, assuming that I need assistance when I don't. I am proficient on the computer, I have programs that translate text into speech. And with Jason, I'm able to get around. I try to be as independent as possible."

Learn about Guiding Eyes for the Blind at www.guidingeyes.org

Joyce has had five guide dogs over the years. The first, Hero, in 1987, was followed by Raven in 1995, Jardin in 2003, Iggy in 2010 and now Jason. "Getting a dog was a big decision," she says, "before that, I hid my cane in my pocketbook and tried to finesse my way through situations. But you can't hide a big dog in your pocketbook, so for me it was like going public." 

          At the end of our interview, Joyce took me downstairs to see what I would call a 'wall of fame,' with pictures of her canine companions. All of them came from Guiding Eyes for the Blind in Yorktown Heights, New York, a school where visually disabled people are matched with their dogs and trained in how to handle them. When their guide days are over, the dogs are retired to foster homes to live out their lives in canine comfort.

          Finally, Joyce said, "Being blind can be traumatic but it's all in how you perceive the event. You have to take the responsibility of asking for help when you need it, gathering information on services or technologies that are available to assist you and not seeing yourself as a victim." On every count, Joyce practices what she preaches. It's a lesson we all can learn.