He's almost blind, but he's got vision

The Orange County Register (MCT) - He heard nothing but the voices of paramedics.

"I got his arm, I got his shoulder," they said. "Grab his legs."

He saw nothing at all.

Moments earlier, something came crashing through Ali Reshamwalla's windshield. The blast knocked him unconscious and sent him rambling blindly down the 405 freeway. He drifted, rolled over an embankment and landed in a backyard, wedged between a lawn and the weight of his toppled car. A stranger, home for the holidays in Torrance, Calif., called 9-1-1.

Loosened from the driver's seat and rushed to a hospital, a wrecked Reshamwalla disappeared into an operating room.

The young men hurling construction concrete at freeway drivers disappeared into the night. But not before nailing two dozen moving targets.

"This isn't some child's prank," a police officer said at the time.

Heavy as the weapons were, nearly everybody drove away unscathed on Dec. 21, 1992. All but one victim left with their perspectives and livelihoods intact.

A day later, Reshamwalla woke with his head wrapped in gauze. His crushed cheeks and chin would soon be reinforced with metal plates. His right eye looked out at faint images and his left eye, split in half, captured only blackness.

His wife stuck by his side. His youngest son, frightened of mummified Dad, retreated to a waiting room.

As he waited to go home, Reshamwalla asked the obligatory sufferer's question: "Why me?" A fashion designer, he knew his career could be in jeapordy.

Then, he noticed one thing: he wasn't alone.

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It's February, more than 16 years later, and nine guys are ambling alongside a busy street in Anaheim, Calif.

Canes click on pavement. Guide dogs pant. A pedestrian signal in the distance chirps faintly.

"This walk is a test," says Reshamwalla. "It's full of obstructions."

Namely, low-hanging tree limbs that nick their foreheads. Still, despite scratches, the friends trek safely from a hamburger joint to the Braille Institute, a school for the visually impaired.

A year ago Reshamwalla joined with this self-deprecating bunch of guys who lunch and talk life every Wednesday.

"My biggest enemy is loneliness," Reshamwalla says. "I have to be with people _ talking, laughing."

And creating.

At the institute, the retired designer steps into a crafts room. He fetches and holds up two Ikea-bought plates. They're embossed with scarlet and cerulean textiles and _ Reshamwalla's signature _ a bold red flower in the center.

At home, in Irvine, Calif., he labors toward other ends. Last year, he began asking the Heritage Park Regional Library to buy a "ClearView," a device that magnifies books and periodicals.

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His lobbying worked.

Two weeks ago, Reshamwalla took small steps through the library, hooked his shoes around the legs of a chair and leaned in.

When the words of a newsmagazine grew five times bigger before his eyes, Reshamwalla straightened his back and gave a rave review.

But, truth is, he doesn't know how long he'll be able to use the device.

With only 5 percent of his vision remaining, Reshamwalla could soon lose his ability to see even the shadows and light that allow him to navigate and, with help, read.

Of that unknown next step, he's very much afraid.

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"I took a plunge," Reshamwalla says. "I'm very notorious for taking chances."

He's talking about his arrival in the United States. The London-raised man left London in 1972. He was nearly 40, already working in fashion design, and he temporarily left a happy marriage and a baby for Manhattan. There, the fledgling designer hoped to make known his name.

With $300 in his pocket, he went to work as a patternmaker _ a step up from his last post as a fabric cutter. He soon rented an apartment and sent for his family.

Later, on a trip to Southern California, he caught an irresistible eyeful of palm and sun.

"What the hell am I doing in New York?" he asked himself.

So, Reshamwalla packed a U-Haul, picked up his people and, with his brother-in-law, opened a T-shirt factory in downtown Los Angeles.

Act one of the American dream: complete.

His second break came when he eyed an ad for a "computer-aided designer" at a woman's clothing manufacturer.

He secured the then-novel position, mixing and matching colors and patterns on a machine assembled by the Hughes Aircraft Co. The room was like an alien cockpit, undergirded with labyrinthine wiring, lined with tiles and aerated by giant fans.

Coolest job ever, he thought; maybe even the coolest life.

All this in the rear view, Reshamwalla collided several years later with a new reality on the 405.

After recovering as best he could, Reshamwalla went back to work as a manager at a swimwear company. Eight years later, his good eye started failing.

Act two of the American dream: seemingly crashed.

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At 72, Reshamwalla rolls out of bed every day at 4 a.m., meditates for an hour and spends the rest of the day outside the house.

He's memorized the corridors of Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Laguna Hills, Calif., where, among other volunteer tasks, he delivers flowers to new mothers.

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He takes classes and works out at Irvine Valley College; takes in the salt air at Balboa Pier. And, using that ClearView, he reads at his local library.

He prays with his family at a mosque. It's led him to forgive the 17- and 18-year-olds _ kids, really _ who hid carelessly on the highway before being chased down and imprisoned for eight years.

Reshamwalla has also regained his sense of self. And, until his world goes pitch black, he plans to thrive in the middle of it all.

"Don't tell me, 'Sit on the bench, I'll be right back,'" he says. "No, put me in a place where I want to sit. Make me sit near the fountain, near the music. I like to see the action, what's going on."

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© 2009, The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.).