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Blind author finds light after darkness

Gurjeet Dhahan grew up a happy child in her native England, always smiling and laughing and enjoying life.
Gurjeet Dhahan
Gurjeet Dhahan

Gurjeet Dhahan grew up a happy child in her native England, always smiling and laughing and enjoying life.

That’s how the former Port Coquitlam resident remembers her early years, before she met the man who would change her life forever.

That man, whom she would later wed through an arranged marriage and have two children with, robbed her of her sense of identity and, before the union came to an official end, turned a gun on her and himself.

The two shots blown into her head left her visually impaired and in a coma for six weeks. Her brother took her in for two years so she could heal and learn how to function again. “It was tough,” she told The Tri-City News. “I had lost my life. Physically, it was really hard to progress.”

None of this background is in Dhahan’s new book, titled Upbeat Snippets, a work she released in June in her new hometown of Surrey.

Rather, Dhahan offers a lighter, positive, side — notes reflecting her true nature. 

book cover

Dhahan, 50, describes her “snippets” as messages she started writing eight years ago, after she moved from her brother’s safe haven and into her own place.

The words came to her at a time when “I was really starting to change my own life and finding happiness,” she said. “The book is about finding happiness in your own life.”

There are humorous passages and deep-thinking ones. There’s the odd blurb, too, she said; however, all need to be interpreted by the reader to make a connection.

A cardiology technician before the attempted murder-suicide, Dhahan credits her family, friends and the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) for helping her through: Learning how to cook again, learning how to walk with a cane, etc.

Now, she wants to share her advice to other visually disabled people going through the same transition — “for them to find some sort of happiness in their own lives.”

Her outreach will come via her website (gdhahanauthor.com), where her book is also sold, and with talks to patients at Royal Columbian Hospital and at GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre. 

“I want people who do have an injury and whose lives aren’t the same anymore to know that there’s always something out there you can find that you never did before. You can accomplish it.”

She added: “A lot of people that I meet who have become blind… it’s so sad listening to them because we live in that darkness. We don’t see the light. But there is hope.”

Last year, on Oct. 19, Dhahan and her relatives celebrated 10 years since the tragedy. They marked the occasion like a birthday — a kind of rebirth following a near-death experience.

She feels blessed to be alive. And stronger. 

“I’m going to make my own decisions and nobody is going to tell me what to do,” she said. “It’s incredible how far I’ve come. I am myself now.”

jcleugh@tricitynews.com