My mother’s younger brother Carl was a bit of a character. He had travelled all over the world taking pictures and had taken some fantastic pictures of some very beautiful ladies that he must have been involved with, but he had never married. He had been employed by a firm that was headquartered in Baltimore Maryland, and after he had felt he had done enough travelling he had purchased the firm. At least I think he bought it, because he was listed as the owner in any of the newspaper articles I had read. This company provided very experienced photographers who would travel anywhere in the world to take pictures for people who could afford to pay them. They were well known for their superb wedding photographs and the pictures that some of their employee’s took while travelling around the world appeared in many of the top magazines. I wouldn’t have thought that some of the people Uncle Carl had working for him had looked like photographers, because a few of the men looked to be more like body builders than photographers, and a couple of them appeared to be characters I wouldn’t have wanted to meet up with in a dark alley. And a couple of the girls, while just as gorgeous as the others, appeared to be the type of lady who would be able to kick the living daylights out of you if you tried something that they didn’t want you to do. I had to drop by Uncle Carl’s office in Baltimore to go over some of the details about the trust fund that my dad left me. Uncle Carl was the executor of dad’s estate and I was going to be given a rather large increase in my monthly allowance as well as a little more discretion about how I wanted to spend the funds coming to me as of my 25th birthday, which was occurring next month. The only problem with going to see Uncle Carl at his office was that I was going to have to get past Miss Halfpenny, his receptionist/secretary. I didn’t like her. She was a dour older lady that didn’t seem to have the ability, or the desire to crack a smile. She must have been very efficient in order for Uncle Carl to have kept her around for the past 25 years, but every time I saw her I wondered how she could possibly do her job. This rather formidable lady had to have had pretty close to the poorest eyesight in the world. Her glasses looked terrible on her, as they would on anyone I suppose. The frames were very up to date and fashionable, but the lenses looked like little bulls eyes centered in the frames. Every time I saw her I chuckled inside thinking of how much fun it would be to use her glasses for target practice. One time I watched what she was doing on the computer, and in order for her to do her job she would bring her nose to within about 14 or 15 centimeters from the keyboard in order for her to see the keys. The font that she used on her computer monitor appeared to be Arial Black, and was done in bold text that was around size 18 in order for her to read it from where she sat. I had to give her some credit because she did seem to handle the telephone calls quite efficiently. I was sure however that Uncle Carl could easily have replaced her with someone who looked to be a little more normally sighted. I didn’t mind seeing a lady wearing glasses, it was just that these glasses telegraphed the fact that she was blind as an old bat. Finally Miss Halfpenny told me I could go in to see my uncle. Uncle Carl opened the door and let me into his office and after the door swung shut and Miss Halfpenny couldn’t hear me I asked my uncle why he kept that blind old bat around. The next thing I knew I was gripped around the neck by the strongest hand I had ever known and I was up against the wall with my feet dangling. “That blind old bat is the only reason I am still alive you young whippersnapper. Mind your tongue around her, you understand.” My uncle said angrily. “I am sorry Jeremy.” My uncle said as he released his grip on my neck and my feet came back to the floor. “It’s just that you don’t understand these things. Lillian Halfpenny was the most beautiful photographer we ever had working here, and I was madly I love with her. I have spent the last 25 years trying to convince her that she should marry me just like we had originally planned to do, but she keeps telling me that she won’t saddle me with a blind lady. She isn’t blind, she just has very limited vision, and it is all my fault.” I was still pretty shocked by the demonstration of anger and strength that my uncle had shown when I had denigrated the appearance of Miss Halfpenny. And my uncle’s admission that he had spent the last 25 years attempting to get her to marry him surprised me even more. But what really caused me to wonder about things was his admission that it was all his fault that she was next best thing to being blind because of him. “What do you mean by it was all your fault Uncle Carl?” I asked. “I have said too much already Jeremy. I really can’t tell you any of the details. Just believe me when I tell you that Lillian Halfpenny is far more to me than a half blind older lady wearing rather drab clothing. She was a vision of delight when your dad and I were younger, and I know if your father hadn’t been going out with my sister he would have likely chased after Lillian as well.” Uncle Carl said. “My dad? What did my dad have to do with you back then?” I asked. “I suspected that it would all come out someday Jeremy. Let’s put our coats on and we will go for lunch. I know a secure place where I can tell you the whole story. But it is a story that can never be repeated to a soul – not even your mother can know. Will you give me your word on that?” Carl asked. I will Uncle Carl.” I replied. Uncle Carl and I left his office and as I walked out I grabbed another look at Lillian Halfpenny. She had never smiled at me before, but that day when I looked at her a smile cracked across her face. When she smiled I saw that if you took away the glasses she really had a nice looking face. And if she had dressed a little less modestly she likely had a decent figure because she had a pretty good rack that I had never really noticed before. Carl took me to a special club where he must have had a membership. We were escorted to a private booth in a back room and the waiter took our drink order. We looked over the menu, and when the waiter returned with our drinks Uncle Carl told him we would order, and would like to be undisturbed except for when he returned with our meals. Once we were alone Uncle Carl began to tell me the story he had promised to tell me. He started off by saying to me that he really shouldn’t be telling anyone about this, and what he told me was so top secret that not only could my life could be in danger if I told anyone, but so could the lives of a number of his people. Also, he told me that if I ever let a word slip my trust fund would be in jeopardy as well, which I really didn’t understand until he also told me that my father had been an operative and was killed while on a mission. Apparently the photography store was his only in name, and he and Lillian Halfpenny, along with all the famous photographers that worked for them were in fact employed by the federal government. He told me the initials of the bureau they worked for, but to me it was just another of those no name initial only groups similar to FBI or CIA. I was taken aback by the information that my father had been a spy and was killed while working overseas. My mother had always told me that he died in a car accident not too far from home and his body was buried in our local cemetery. But here was Uncle Carl telling me that dad was killed working for the same initials only government group he worked for. And Uncle Carl told me that it was my father that had been the one who had originally recommended him for his job. Apparently my trust fund was funded by the government and was available for any children of any agents who were killed on the job and the funds could be cut off if I were to ever tell anyone about the source of my money. Uncle Carl went on to tell me about some of the missions that he and Lillian Halfpenny had carried out. They were a well-known couple as professional photographers all across Europe and throughout the Middle East. Someone at the office had figured out that if Lillian Halfpenny were to wear rather strong looking glasses then the government officials in these countries would not be as suspicious that Uncle Carl and Lillian were not what they claimed to be. Someone at the agency came up with the idea that if Lillian were to wear rather powerful plus contact lenses she could then be fitted with glasses that had minus lenses that would be sufficiently powerful that people would look at them and would never even consider the idea that she might be a government spook. Wearing contact lenses back in the last decade of the previous century was not that hard. But for some reason Lillian could not get used to the newer type of soft lenses and they had to fit her with what was called RGP, or rigid gas permeable lenses. These lenses were a very hard plastic that had to be custom molded to a person’s eyes, and the wearer took a lot longer to get used to wearing them than they did to the soft ones. But Lillian persevered and eventually she could wear these gas permeable ones for as long as 20 hours a day. Back then, for the glasses that Lillian had to wear, her only choice for her in her myodiscs was a lenticular myodisc lens in her then -22.50D prescription. She and Uncle Carl were a familiar couple all over the Arabian states and Uncle Carl felt that the strong glasses that Lillian wore actually did help to divert suspicion from them. One of the countries along the Gulf was undergoing a lot of turmoil. The dictator in charge really kept the population under control with a heavy thumb, and any dissenters were jailed and then they often mysteriously disappeared from the jails. The agency director had sent Uncle Carl and Lillian in to the country to see if they could confirm any rumors that the government had been doing an awful lot of development on weapons of mass destruction, a more descriptive term than using the term of poison gas or of air borne viruses. Apparently Carl and Lillian tracked a number of chemical deliveries to a huge warehouse building that was well guarded, and they managed to slip inside without being spotted. The rumors were correct. Inside the building was a huge laboratory, and in the warehouse there were thousands of steel containers that held the airborne gasses and liquids. Carl and Lillian planted explosives around the warehouse and they attempted to escape before they set off the charges, but something went wrong and the warehouse blew up before they were able to escape. The resulting blast caused Carl to be thrown in the air and he landed flat on his back, likely hitting his head, which knocked him out and Lilian had to try to drag him to safety. Carl was unconscious and his eyes were closed so the gasses did not hurt his eyes, but the heat and the gas fumes must have melted the plastic of the contact lenses into the corneas of Lillian’s eyes. Lillian was able to get Carl to safety and to their car, and then thankfully Carl woke up to find that the polyester shirt that Lillian had on had been on fire and Lillian was burnt all over the upper part of her body. Carl then rushed Lillian to the private hospital in the embassy, where the doctors were able to remove the melted remains of the shirt, but Lillian was pretty badly burnt and no amount of treatment was going to be able to restore her skin to the flawless body that she had previously been blessed with. Carl and Lillian had to be smuggled out of the country on a government plane and they were returned to the States. The doctors at the embassy hospital had looked at Lillian’s eyes, but they did not dare attempt to remove the contact lenses that had fused to her corneas. Back at home Lillian was seen by a team of government doctors and the eventual consensus was that it would be far too dangerous to attempt to operate on her corneas. The only thing they could suggest was to do a corneal transplant, which was presently in the process of being perfected. But Lillian could actually see fairly well with the contact lenses permanently molded into her corneas so she decided that she would rather wear the strong myodiscs rather than take a chance on being permanently blinded should an operation not succeed. I had seen glasses that were somewhere around -22.50D before and I knew that the ones Lillian Halfpenny wore had to be a heck of a lot stronger than that. I asked Uncle Carl about this, and he went on to tell me that after she had returned to work the firm had given her the job as receptionist and secretary. She spent most of her time doing paperwork and other close work, and when she went home at night she also spent a lot of her time reading. Lillian was in her mid 20’s when the warehouse explosion occurred, and she would have, under normal circumstances, been a little bit past the age where her eyeballs would naturally grow longer. It was possible that the exposure to some of the chemicals had caused her eyeballs to elongate, or maybe it was due to a combination of her wearing very strong minus glasses along with the chemical exposure. It really didn’t matter how it occurred because she now needed glasses that were right around -48D and her corrected eyesight actually was obviously quite poor. Uncle Carl had taken Lillian to see a number of well-known and respected eye surgeons. Not one of them could guarantee successful restoration of Lillian’s vision and this was frustrating Uncle Carl. He had convinced Lillian that the scars on her upper body from the burning shirt did not bother him, but she was adamant that she would not marry him while her vision was as poor as it was. He was reaching out to everyone in the optical field, and he did not understand why Lillian could not just have a corneal transplant in each eye. At least that option would take away the original -22.50D of myopia. As the doctors explained to him though any form of operation was risky and might lead to a detached retina that could leave Lillian permanently blind. Even if the corneal transplant was successful the chance of Lillian developing cataracts was very high. And the corneal transplants were not guaranteed to be a success either. After we finished our lunch and our discussion Uncle Carl and I went our separate ways. But I was still very curious as to what the eventual outcome of Carl and Lillian’s romance would be. I liked Uncle Carl a lot. He had been the father figure in my life as my own dad had been killed when I was very young, and Uncle Carl had been around to take me to father son events as often as he possibly could. I knew very little about eyes or eyesight but I was an excellent researcher and I started looking into what could be done to restore the vision of very nearsighted people. All my research convinced me that if all the doctors who had looked at Lillian were convinced that a corneal transplant was too risky because of the possibility of her developing cataracts then it was obvious to me from my research that the simple removal of her own lens followed by a lens implant was the best way to go. This would eliminate the future cataract problem and with the removal of the natural lens, which provides around +20D of power, along with an inserted lens of around -15D, which was about the strongest available minus power. Lillian could have her glasses prescription reduced to around -13D. My attitude towards Lillian had changed since I found out the truth about her eyesight and my new attitude lead her to become a lot friendlier towards me. Now when I went to the office to see Uncle Carl I would often engage Lillian in conversation. She was now quite friendly towards me and she and I had some nice chats about my dad as she had known dad fairly well. As I came to my conclusions about what I felt they should consider doing to restore her eyesight I often talked to her about it before I ran it by Uncle Carl. When I discussed the lens implant option that would leave her requiring -13D glasses with her the one question she had was what that would mean if she ended up being able to later have a corneal transplant. The plastic lenses that had molded themselves to her cornea’s and had been the initial cause of her high myopia had never caused her any trouble at all, but most of the doctors had felt that there was a high possibility that someday they would either be rejected by the cornea, or they would start to break up and deteriorate. The doctors had unanimously felt that at that point a corneal transplant would be her only option. I thought about that possibility and I researched it further. If her inner lens was replaced with a minus lens to reduce her myopia to only -13D then a corneal transplant would give her somewhere around a +10D prescription. When I told Lillian that she was horrified about the prospect of wearing strong plus glasses. She told me that there was no way she would even consider that. I did a few more calculations and I returned to see her the following day. I told her that simply removing her inner lenses would drop the power of her glasses to somewhere around -28D. If she was willing to return to wearing the original -22.50D prescription that she had been using with the contact lenses then they could implant a -5.50D lens in her sac where they removed the original lens from. Then Lillian surprised me. She asked me if I thought it might be better for her to end up nearsighted even after the corneal transplant – if it were to ever happen. I thought about that for a minute and I told her that this would mean that she would still have to wear -28D myodiscs until a corneal transplant happened. I also told her that as far as I was concerned it would be much better to be a bit nearsighted rather than farsighted. I had not told her about the possibility of having a lens implanted that would be just like another contact lens behind her iris, but I did tell her about this now, and I also told her that this lens could be removed if she ever needed that corneal transplant. I had given her too much to think about. I did not go into see Uncle Carl that day, because it had been Lillian I had come to talk to, and I left her with all of the known options to think about. She called my cell the following day and told me that she felt that it would be better for her if she simply had her inner lens removed for now and ended up with a much reduced -28D prescription for her glasses. I asked her if she would then marry my uncle, because that was my whole reason behind trying to help out with her vision problems. Lillian answered that since it was her decision she would be willing to marry Carl. Carl and Lillian went to see the specialist that they had felt the most comfortable with, and he agreed that this would be the best option for Lillian at this time. After the operation Lillian got her new glasses and when I stopped by the office to see her and congratulate both Lillian and Carl on their upcoming marriage she was beaming from ear to ear when I complimented her on her new glasses. I didn’t ask her what her new prescription was, but it was easy to see that whatever it was she could see a whole lot better. She no longer looked like a blind old lady, even though her glasses were still quite strong. And when I went in to see Carl he was unable to hide his joy at finally being able to get Lillian to agree to marry him. He was so pleased with me for doing the research and discussing what I had learned with Lillian that he asked me to be his best man at the wedding. Lillian was an absolutely gorgeous 50 something bride. She had purchased a new pair of myodiscs to wear for the wedding, and whatever they had cost had been a worthwhile investment. The wedding dress hid any of the scars she had from public view and from what could be seen of her figure showed a very well-proportioned lady. And the look on Carl’s face as she walked down the aisle to join him was absolutely priceless. My mother had been asked to be Lillian’s maid of honor and I could see that mother was extremely happy for her brother and her new sister in law. Specs4ever Feb 2016