You had to love Michael. He had an infectious gaiety in spite of the fact that he had gone blind a few months before. It was not CMV, he said, but the mistakenly late diagnosis of a different condition which could have been treated earlier and saved his sight. But there was no bitterness, only a single-minded focus on coping.

He was 23, tall and very good-looking in a boyish way. His best feature was his pale blue almond-shaped eyes that were always slightly smiling. I asked if he had been vain. He said very, and he missed seeing himself in the mirror, but he trusted his mother to tell him the absolute truth about his appearance. She was kind, efficient and determined, even matter-of-fact – on the surface. A little way down there was, I suspected, a quiet desperation.

When Michael had lost his sight his mother, Mary, had moved from Florida to stay with him, temporarily, they hoped, until he had adjusted well enough to live alone. They lived on the west side of Hollywood, on a street lined with trees and large new apartment complexes and condominiums. He had already gained quite a high degree of confidence and moved around the apartment adroitly. As we chatted at some length he impressed me with his acceptance, humor and optimism. I said I would like to bottle his attitude and give it away to others who lacked his positive gifts.

There was actually one way we might do this. I invited him to appear on my TV talk show and, perhaps, be an inspiration for others. I think Mary had a few misgivings about him going public but he was very keen to share his story. He may be blind, he said, but he didn’t live in darkness and wanted to share his experiences with as many as possible. “Probably vanity”, he added.

Driving him to the studio we talked about so many things unconnected with his HIV that I actually forgot for a while that he was blind. When I told him that he said “Join the club”. He waited for me in the green room while I saw to the studio set-up and then we were ready to begin. While we sat on the set waiting for the tape to roll he was full of questions and made me describe in detail how the studio was set up.

Then I asked, “Before we begin I just want to clarify the terms we use, just so you’re comfortable. Is it OK to use the word blind, or would you prefer a euphemism?”

He laughed. “Oh sure, ‘blind’s’ fine. No problem. Whenever they try to call me ‘visually challenged’ I say ‘yeah, visually challenged as a bat’”.

We were still laughing when they cued me to begin. And that’s basically the way the whole show went. It sped by and he was the perfect guest. On the way home he was even more animated, his natural enthusiasm and curiosity spiked by the adrenaline rush that often follows a taping.

We got back to his apartment complex and I was surprised to see his mother standing at the front door, holding it open. As we came up the steps Mary explained that there had been a power failure all along that side of the street. The building was in darkness and, as the intercom and entry buzzer weren’t working, we wouldn’t have been able to get in, so she waited for us.

We went inside and she wasn’t kidding – complete darkness. It was the kind of extended complex with long, winding, windowless corridors. And their apartment was a long way round to the rear. Mary and I found it a daunting prospect to plunge into the pitch dark passage but Michael came into his own.

“Don’t worry, I’ve done this a hundred times. Hold on to me.”

So he got in front and clicked open his white cane. I put my hand on his shoulders, his mother put hers on mine and this odd little blind conga line moved swiftly and confidently along the corridor, turning corners without slowing, until we heard the tap of his cane on a door and we stopped.

“Here it is.” We heard Michael put the key in the lock, the door opened and, suddenly, the relief of daylight flooding into the apartment.

“And that”, said Michael, with a note of triumph, “is what’s known as the blind leading the blind.”

I spoke to Michael several times after this, usually on the phone, and saw him and his mother once more when I took them copies of the show tapes. Then, as is usually the case, my attention turned to the many new clients and I lost contact with them.

It must have been almost a year later that Mary called me to tell me that Michael had recently died. I asked how she was and if there was anything I could do.

“Well, actually, there is.”

She had moved back home to Florida but, in the confusion of moving out of the apartment and shipping her belongings back, some of them had been lost.  She didn’t care about any of them except for one thing.

“The tapes have gone – the tapes of the show. I’ve looked everywhere, but they’ve gone. You don’t by chance still have copies, do you?”

“Sure, I keep the masters of all my shows. I can easily get more copies made and mail them to you.”

Her relief was palpable. “Oh thank you. Thank you so much. You see, it’s all I have left”.