Into the Darkness

She thought she had seen it all until she woke up blind one recent morning.

In those frightening first moments in mid-May of this year, Rye Manor's tireless senior advocate Josephine (Jo) Delmonte, 85, saw pivotal people in her life flash before her hurting and unseeing eyes –her late husband, Jim, her four grown up children, 11 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren, living worlds apart from her now.

And then she saw nothing but darkness, and knew she had to do something.

But what?

Simple things like showering, dressing and preparing her next meal loomed like impossibly difficult tasks. Groping her way around her apartment seemed like exploring a dark continent. Picking up a phone and dialing for help became her first impulse, she said, but even that task had become a challenge.

But rather than give in to a sense of hopelessness, Jo summoned some courage.

She told herself she was, after all, Jo Del Monte, small, petite almost, but never a quitter, and she had come through a lot (including being the sole survivor of her eight siblings). God willing, she knew she would go through a lot more because she had a sense of purpose in her life. That purpose came from helping Rye seniors in many different ways.

Jo, a 14-year Rye resident, who had done so much to help arrange for discounted transportation for Rye's financially needy and home-bound seniors so they could do things like shop or go to the doctor, now would have to figure out how to make those things happen for herself.

As a hard-working member of Rye's Senior Advisory Council, Jo knew she had the resourceful to make things happen for those of a certain age. And she knew she had something else going for her. That something was and is Rye Manor.

Rye Manor, for the uninitiated, is an affordable living senior housing apartment complex off Theall Road, directly across from the rolling college campus-like lawns of the Osborn Retirement Community, one of the most upscale retired living complexes in America.

That juxtaposition of the wealthy with the not-so moneyed parts of Rye is part of what makes this city so intriguing. And what makes Rye Manor so intriguing is what a close-knit community it is, a place where they really look out for one another because they know what it is like not to have anyone really look out for them.

So Jo knew it was only a matter of time before one of her friends or neighbors would come knocking on her door to make sure she was alright. And that is exactly what happened. Friends like Fran De Feo, Annie Budd, Lucille Arciolla and Mary Lee came knocking. And did the little, mudane things for her, like helping her dress or dial the phone or helping her do chair exercises and meditate to encourage positive thinking.

"For ten days, I couldn't see," Jo told Rye Patch. "And for ten years, at least, since my husband, Jim, died, my eyes have been deteriorating to the point where I woke up and I couldn't see at all. It was, I don't know what it was. Scary. Frightening. I had been getting something like 16 shots at a time in and around my retina to help my vision and reduce the pain for several weeks now. And my vision was there, cloudy, but there. And then I went to sleep and woke up and it wasn't."

At first, she didn't want to even leave her apartment. With the help of her friends and neighbors, she learned to move around in darkness.

That struggle was difficult for Jo, who has spent so many years assisting others by helping get foundation grants and discount travel vouchers for seniors, among other things.

But the community stepped up to return her kindness in spades, from cooking her meals to cleaning the dishes to running the shower to helping with the laundry. Her Rye Manor cadre helped get her to the 150 Purchase Street offices of her retina specialist, Dr. Howard Charles, who decided to operate. Her Rye Manor coterie got her to and from the hospital for the delicate surgery and they were at her side as her vision slowly returned.

She still has to cope with her diagnosis of macular degeneration, but she is gradually getting back to being more and more like the old Jo, returning to the Widows and Widowers Club at Scarsdale's Saint Pius Church, for example, where she gives advice and consolation to the newly bereaved and draws on the strength, hope and comfort of those who have learned to play the hand life has dealt them through hard-earned experience.

 And now life is returning to normal for Jo, a former bookkeeper whose husband worked in printing and survived some of the bloodiest battles of World War II only to die of emphysema in the 45th year of their marriage.

Jo sees well enough to once again participate in the twice weekly, hour-long Rye Manor chair stretch'n'flex exercises run and funded by the Rye YMCA, a program Jo helped start. She is feeling well enough to get to the beauty parlor for touch ups on her red-haired bouffant that makes her look a decade younger than she is. And she was looking forward to an upcoming Grand Hyatt luncheon meeting of the "Red Hats," those gals who wear those red chapeaus to show how spirited they are, no matter what their age.

She is also busy planning Rye Manor's next excursion, booking the bus and arranging for the tickets so a group of the "girls" can attend dinner theatre to see "Sugar" in July at the Westchester Broadway Theatre in Elmsford, she said.

And she is once again helping run Rye Manor's Bingo evenings, including buying and preparing the coffee. She is back working with Marion Shea and Joe Murphy on the Rye Senior Advisory Council, which recently helped her get a donated vision-enhancing machine that helps her read her mail via the efforts of one of their members, Julia Scwartz-Leeter, executive director of the Riverdale Senior Center.

Her mind is filled with lots of other things, from planning the decorations for special occasions at Rye Manor to being released from her need for regular doctor's appointments for her eyes to mapping out visits to her sons and daughters, who live in Texas, California and in nearby Byram and Danbury.

"See" is the operative word, because her vision has cleared and she can once again see the world around her, including her Rye world where the Lions Club honored her not long ago for her work for seniors in the community.

"Jo is an inspiration to us," says Annie Budd, one of her buddies from Rye Manor. "She is always doing something for somebody, and never expects anything in return," says another Rye Manor friend, Lucille Aciolla.

Jo shrugs off any praise. "I don't understand why anyone would want to write about me?" she says.

"I feel my life has a purpose, and that purpose is to try to help people, especially seniors, because I am one of them, understand them, and know their needs," she says. "I feel blessed. Especially now that I can see the world again through new eyes, something I will never again take for granted."

Michael Iachetta is a retired former nationally syndicated writer, columnist, editor, arts critic and more who has filed award-winning stories from all over the world for The New York Daily News. His column, "I On Rye," profiling life and people in the city of Rye, will appear twice a month on Rye Patch.