Sandpiper Reflections (pub: October 1, 2019)

Paperback. Signed.

Trust is built slowly with a new dog, one day at a time. It’s a mutual process—just as the blind person learns to trust the dog, the dog learns to trust the handler.

I now realize how smart and absolutely focused Anna was and remain grateful that she was my first dog. I know she taught me a lot more than I ever taught her.

She built my confidence as an independent traveler and paved the way for successful work with the dogs who would follow her. Her work ethic was astonishing. I know there were many days when she had health problems and continued to work despite them. She literally worked until the day she died.

KAREN BROWN was born in Charleston, South Carolina, attended elementary and junior high school in North Carolina, and graduated from high school in New Orleans. After graduation from Centenary College in Shreveport, Louisiana, she began her career as a high school English teacher in Brevard County, Florida.

Vision problems leading to total blindness by the time she was thirty dramatically changed her life and led to a career in services for the blind. She was a client advocate for fifteen years and in 2002 was the first blind person named as permanent Director of the Addie McBryde Rehabilitation Center in Jackson.

Along her life’s journey she raised a son and worked with three Seeing Eye dogs. In retirement she trained to become a spiritual director. She is a regular contributor to the Upper Room Magazine, a devotional magazine of the United Methodist Church. She has been married to Don Brown for fifty-one years and is a resident of Madison. Karen’s memoir Sandpiper was published in July 2016.