Marie O’Leary
Personal Stories
“If someone like me, a woman with retinitis pigmentosa and a part-time job, can leave a legacy gift, you can too! And trust me, it feels really, really good to know that part of your life’s work will contribute to something meaningful for future generations.”
Foundation Legacy Supporter Marie O'Leary
“ Blindness has always been a part of my family’s life. When I was a young child, I never knew that my grandmother was completely blind, Marie shared. “All her daughters just stepped in, took care of her and helped her continue cooking for family meals. Generations of O’Learys have found creative ways to work around our blindness.”
Marie continues “When I started losing my vision too, I understood. I could see fine during the daylight so I never told people. I was even able to learn to drive. But I couldn’t see at night, so I declined a lot of invitations and missed a lot of social gatherings as a teenager and young adult. That’s just how it was. You didn’t tell people about your blindness. You just found your way around it.”
If someone like me, a woman with Retinitis Pigmentosa and a part-time job can do it, you can too! And trust me, it feels really, really good to know that part of your life’s work will contribute to something meaningful for future generations.”
Marie wanted more than that for the next generation of her family, and that’s why she made the incredibly generous decision to include the Foundation Fighting Blindness as a beneficiary in her will.
Marie says “Don’t get me wrong . . . I don’t have a lot of money. But whatever I have, it feels good knowing that a portion of my estate will go to ending blindness. I’m convinced that the Foundation Fighting Blindness is the best place to put all of my hopes and dreams for my family. They are the largest private funder of blindness research in the world. That’s important because without funding for research there will be no cure.
