5 days ago
He lost his sight in Berlin. Now he helps others find independence in Florida
Blue was the last color Jose Lopez Masso ever saw.
He remembers the interior of a Berlin taxi. The blue-ish shades around him in the hospital. Then the world running together, like paint mixing, until there was nothing left.
Lopez Masso was suddenly blind at 32.
Now, over two decades later, he has a wife and a daughter. He goes on cruises around the world. He scuba dives. He dances to music at country concerts. And he works at the Lighthouse of Broward, where he fundraises and teaches others who went blind later in life how to be independent, like him.
'I'm not just a guy that gives you a paper, a folder, a brochure,' said Lopez Masso, now 59. 'I can tell you what I went through.'
Seventeen Surgeries
When Lopez Masso lost his sight, he was a Venezuelan diplomat stationed in Germany, following in the footsteps of his father — the first Venezuelan ambassador to Germany after World War II. He had lived out his childhood in Eastern Germany, where he watched his father use politics as a means of bettering people's lives. He expected to spend the majority of his life doing the same.
He had been diagnosed with glaucoma when he was born. It didn't impede his everyday life, he said, but there was a chance he would eventually lose his vision. So in 1999, he had cornea transplant surgery.
At first, his vision was clearer than it ever had been. Then his body began to reject the transplant. He had another surgery.
His body rejected the transplant again, and again, and again. Over the course of a year and a half, Lopez Masso had 17 surgeries to restore his quickly fading vision. None of them worked.
'It was like a movie of your life that you used to see every day getting smaller and smaller,' Lopez Masso said, 'and blurrier and blurrier, until it totally disappeared.'
While Lopez Masso was on medical leave from his diplomatic position, he was laid off. His insurance was cut about half a year into his hospital stays. He was lucky to have the support of his family, he said, and a good amount of savings. His mother came to stay with him in Germany to help him recover from each surgery.
During those days, Lopez Masso couldn't sleep. He had no idea what his life would become. As soon as the doctors gave him the green light to go home, he and his mother flew back to Venezuela.
Living in Venezuela as a blind person in the early 2000s was hard, Lopez Masso said. Walking on the sidewalk was an ordeal on its own, since there were often obstacles blocking his path like parked motorcycles and potholes. As for places he could turn for help, the facility accessible to him was more of a daycare, he said, than a place to take classes and learn life skills as a blind person. Lopez Masso wanted to be self-sufficient as soon as possible, he said. He came to the conclusion that he couldn't stay at home.
He was already a U.S. green card holder due to some work he'd done there while he was a diplomat. He had a cousin in Fort Lauderdale. He decided to make the move in 2001.
The Lighthouse
Lopez Masso was initially skeptical of the rehabilitation organization his cousin had found for him: the Lighthouse of Broward. The way his cousin and his other family members talked about it seemed overly optimistic — as if everything would go back to normal once he took a few classes.
'I'm blind… I need to hold onto your arm just to go down the steps,' he told his relatives. 'And you're saying you'll take me to a place where everything's fine? Whatever, you know?'
But eventually he had to confront his other option, he said.
'Being at home, depressed, crying and probably going crazy?' Lopez Masso said. 'I didn't actually have an alternative.'
So he walked through the doors of the nonprofit in Sunrise, which serves blind people in South Florida by teaching them — at no charge — to use computers and phones for possible careers and to do daily tasks, like cooking and getting around. The nonprofit also pairs its clients with case workers to help them find jobs.
A woman interviewed him that first day to see what programs he qualified for at the Lighthouse. Lopez Masso said she was the one who soothed his cynicism.
''I'm not going to tell you that I know how you feel, because I'm not blind. But I would like to tell you that there are opportunities and ways you can recreate your life,'' she told him. 'That is the important part of the Lighthouse. They don't promise you things that are impossible.'
The organization taught him how to utilize text-to-speech aids with a computer, so he could read emails and webpages. At first, he played the automated voice slowly. Now he plays it at multiple times the normal speed, scanning quickly at the same pace as if he were reading the words on the screen in his head. He does the same with an app on his phone, which he uses to take photos of his surroundings and generate descriptions of them.
He also learned tips to stay safe around the house without being able to see — like wearing long oven mitts that go past the elbow and using only the first two burners on a stove when he's cooking. And the instructors at the Lighthouse taught him how to use a cane, though he didn't like the unpredictability of whether he might hit someone. Now he has a guide dog, a yellow lab named Louis.
Eventually, he 'graduated' from the Lighthouse and got his first job while blind at a small autism awareness organization that eventually shut down. The Lighthouse offered him a consulting gig teaching blind people how to use computers in 2008. He took it.
He's been at the Lighthouse ever since, working his way up to vice president of Public Affairs and Government Relations. Now he works with donors and government partners across the local, state and federal level to secure funding for the nonprofit. He oversees a grant writer and a marketing consultant, and a couple of boards and visual communications — he edits videos and he's in charge of all social media.
Since Lopez Masso took a leadership role eight years ago, the Lighthouse's budget has more than quadrupled to just under $9 million, CEO Ellyn Drotzer said. The organization's endowment has also grown from $4.1 million to $18 million. She attributes the majority of that growth to him.
'He treats everybody with the same level of dignity and respect,' Drotzer said. 'It's as if he's challenging you to do the same, that you should always treat blind people with this level of dignity and respect too.'
He's especially important to those who used to be high-ranking professionals before they went blind, Drotzer said.
'They find hope through his ability to overcome and come back for a second chapter and be just as successful,' Drotzer said. 'He's just remarkable. He's a paragon of what's possible.
Daily Life
Lopez Masso still surprises strangers with his capabilities, said his wife, Carla Dulzaides, recalling how nearly 20 years ago he went out of his way on their first date to open the car door for her even though she was the one driving.
Now they have a 15-year-old daughter together. They go on cruises, their most recent one to Japan. They scuba dive together on occasion, since Dulzaides is a high school marine sciences teacher and is passionate about the ocean. They live what most people would consider to be a normal life, Dulzaides said.
There are challenges, of course. When they go out to eat, the waiter always asks Dulzaides what Lopez Masso would like, as if he can't answer himself. People start to talk very loudly and slowly to Lopez Masso when they meet him for the first time, like he can't understand them. Sometimes Dulzaides thinks people assume if you can't see, you're dumb, she said.
If anything, being blind has forced Lopez Masso and his peers to be hyper-organized and 'perfect' at their jobs, Lopez Masso said — because their job opportunities are so limited. They have to be resourceful, he said.
That bleeds over into daily life, too, Dulzaides said. They both make sure everything is in its place in the kitchen, because if a spoon or a salt shaker is not in its usual spot, it will take a long time for Lopez Masso to find it again. She's careful not to move the furniture, since Lopez Masso is comfortable moving around the house without his guide dog.
It's crucial to Lopez Masso that he finds autonomy wherever he can for blind people, for both clients and himself, he said — whether that's educating their family members or helping them jumpstart a new career. He tries to show them that they don't have to rely on the Lighthouse's help forever.
'We want you here to learn, to train and then — see you later, alligator,' Lopez Masso said.
