COLUMN: Edi’s son

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Edi had her first child on the way. Before she began to have excruciating stomach aches, her pregnancy was thought to be normal. She worried about her fetus. Doctors determined that she had appendicitis after her husband hurried her to the hospital. They applied ice to her tummy as part of her treatment. The physicians told Edi to have the baby aborted since they thought the treatment would not work. They clarified that since they knew the child will be born with a disability of some sort, abortion would be the wisest course of action. You see, the physicians believed their strange treatment had endangered the fetus because they had misdiagnosed Edi. Edi disregarded the doctor’s advise despite the risks to herself and her unborn kid as well as the potential for the child to be born disabled. She was adamant about having her child.

Edi gave birth on September 22, 1958, to a son. The youngster was born with congenital glaucoma, a handicap that the physicians had expected. The optic nerves that carry visual information from the eyes to the brain were injured in Edi’s baby at birth. The boy’s blindness was barely partial. The youngster, who had very poor vision, could see everything, but only up close. The youngster had thirteen surgeries to try to enhance his vision by the time he was three and a half years old, but none of them were successful. Since no local school would accept him, his parents took him to a boarding school for visually handicapped youngsters when he was seven years old. The youngster came home for holidays and once a month his family came to visit him at the boarding school. After that, an occurrence occurred that Edi’s kid described as the worst time in his life. At the school for the blind and visually challenged, the child was playing goalie in a game of football that you and I would refer to as soccer. Edi’s son was playing goalie for the first time, and it would be his last. Edi’s son was hit in the face by the ball that was kicked by one of the players. The youngster was permanently covered in darkness as the power of the blow produced a bleed.

Although Edi’s son was blind, he had amazing hearing. The youngster started taking piano lessons when he was just six years old. He learned to play the drums, flute, guitar, saxophone, trombone, and trumpet as a result of his passion for music. After graduating high school, Edi’s son pursued a legal education at a college. He played piano bars to make ends meet while attending college. He served as a court-appointed lawyer after receiving his law degree. To our advantage, Edi’s kid pursued another career path, even though he might have remained an attorney and his accomplishments would have been spectacular.

We would never have heard a voice that has appeared on 15 solo studio albums, three best hits albums, nine full operas, and more than 75 million records sold globally to date if Edi had followed her physicians’ instructions. According to Celine Dion, God would sound a lot like Andrea Bocelli if he had a singing voice.

References:

The Guardian, June 10, 2010, accessed June 15, 2025, John Hooper, Tenor’s account praised by anti-abortion activists, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jun/10/andrea-bocelli-abortion-italy.

2. Andrea Bocelli and Thomas Edward remember the event that caused his blindness: At that point, night fell. Retrieved June 15, 2025, from Smooth Radio, September 9, 2024, https://www.smoothradio.com/news/music/andrea-bocelli-blind-why-how/.

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