The New York Times-20080128-Old Memories Look Better Through New Glasses

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Old Memories Look Better Through New Glasses

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Sasha Meza lifted her tiny finger, delicately pointing herself out among her junior high school classmates in the yearbook. Her mother and grandmother shuffled through photographs that were spread across a heavy, dark wood table in the rectory of St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church in Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn -- pictures of Sasha at the Special Olympics and at her eighth-grade prom, and some from past Easters of Sasha, her brother, Gabriel Samolyuk, now 5, and her sister, Sabrina Samolyuk, now 12.

Do you remember this? asked her mother, Amelia Meza, holding up a 4-by-6 photo of Sasha at age 8 in a white, fluffy fur-trimmed hood at her First Communion. Sasha peered at the image through glasses with eyes as big and round as an owl's, and erupted in laugher.

This is her life, Ms. Meza said, caressing her daughter's black hair, which was pulled back into a long ponytail, exposing her hearing aid. Sasha is 15, but her petite frame makes her seem years younger.

Her hearing loss and stunted growth were caused by cerebral palsy, a neurological disorder caused by oxygen deprivation to the brain at or before birth. Because all four of her limbs are affected, Sasha's disability is classified as spastic quadriplegia.

She is weaker on her lower than her upper body, Ms. Meza said.

With a walker, Sasha moves stiffly in full leg braces. Her voice is soft and labored. But within the constraints of her physical and mental disabilities, her mother and grandmother have striven to give Sasha a typical childhood. She learns and plays. For 10 years in a row, she has participated in the Special Olympics, in events like gymnastics and a long-distance walk. She loves pink, but also loves wearing her green Girl Scout uniform.

There was a time when Sasha was not as happy as she is today. When she was 5, after the first of three tendon operations to improve her gait and surgery to uncross her eyes, Sasha fell into depression.

It was just too much, Ms. Meza said, blaming herself. For three months, Sasha withdrew and cried, but her mother resisted putting her daughter on antidepressants.

I held her every night, she said.

Ms. Meza had almost forgotten about that traumatic episode until recently, when Sasha's eyes began to trouble her again.

I noticed a discharge, Ms. Meza said. An antibiotic cleared the infection, but Sasha had stopped producing tears. An eye specialist recommended an operation to put plugs into ducts to help Sasha retain tears. Ms. Meza was overcome with dread. I didn't want her to go through the same depression, she said.

The second option was special eyeglasses to retain moisture. The cost: $552. Medicaid, which is paying $70 a week for eyedrops, would not cover the glasses.

Ms. Meza divorced three years ago. Without her husband's salary as a truck driver, up to $70,000 a year, the family had to forgo the comforts of a middle-class life.

If it wasn't for my mom, I don't know where I would be, said Ms. Meza, who lives with her children in her mother's home in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Both women also work at the St. Agnes Church. Ms. Meza, 40, is a secretary three nights a week, and her mother, Yelba Meza, 64, cooks and cleans. And Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Amelia Meza also works as a secretary at a textile company in Manhattan. With this income, plus $750 from a tenant in their two-family home, they are able to pay the $1,700 mortgage and about $300 in utilities. They also receive $490 each month in food stamps.

But they could not afford the glasses.

Yelba Meza began calling community service agencies. Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens, which is one of the seven nonprofit organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, was able to assist the family because of money provided through the fund.

A few weeks ago a specialist made the glasses for Sasha. She can see clearly again and without pain. They fit her nice, Amelia Meza said, smiling. They are so expensive. If something happens to them, or if her sight changes, they will have to be replaced, she said, with a note of distress.

I know they are plastic, but to me they are like gold.

[Illustration]PHOTO: Sasha Meza has cerebral palsy, and looks much younger than 15. She needed new glasses to help her eyes retain moisture. (PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTIAN HANSEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)