Every day is extraordinary

By NANCY BARTLEY
SEATTLE TIMES
SEATTLE -- Every morning before dawn, Georgenne Robbins puts on her robe and slippers and shuffles into the powder-blue bedroom across the hall. She tells her grandson it's time to get up, and that she loves him. He smiles and gazes into her face, sometimes reaching out to brush her cheek.
It's the beginning of another extraordinary day.
Blind since she was 16, Robbins takes care of her 13-year-old grandson, who was violently shaken, struck and thrown as a baby, suffering brain damage that left him with cerebral palsy and unable to talk, walk, eat solid food or drink.
At a time in life when others might rightfully request help managing their own routines, Robbins relies on Braille, a Seeing Eye dog, a few close friends and her own sixth sense to be Nicholas' full-time caregiver, making sure the creed that has guided her for 56 years will guide him, too -- that, disability or no, he will lead as full a life as possible.
"My mother always told me I could do anything anybody else could -- except see," said Robbins, who considers her grandson's very survival a miracle, his life a gift entrusted to her by God. "He's my world."
Though some may not see past Nicholas' limitations, Robbins said she sees him with her heart, and he is beautiful.
Mindful that he's a teenager, she makes sure his straight brown hair is cut and styled, falling just above his long-lashed eyes. She dresses him in Old Navy jeans and T-shirts and trendy tennis shoes she buys at bargain prices. They live on disability income from Social Security in a modest gray rambler in Federal Way, Wash.
At 5:45 a.m., Nicholas awakens as slowly as any teenager facing a new school day. Robbins pours medications into his feeding tube and listens for the beep of a monitor to tell her when the dose is right.
"Good morning, sunshine," she says, leaning in close to his face.
Born without a sheath on her ocular nerve, Robbins lost the ability to distinguish even light from dark 40 years ago, and though she cannot see his smile, she feels it.
Routine
Slowly, patiently, she changes his diaper, dresses him, feeds him through the tube, carries him to his wheelchair and rolls it to the bus stop.
As a young woman, Robbins dreamed of marrying and having children, never anticipating the heartbreak that would follow -- her only daughter's bipolar illness; the abuse done to Nicholas; the departure of her first husband, who couldn't handle her blindness.
She was happy for years with a second husband, who is also blind, but he became mentally ill and could no longer live at home. The two have lost touch.
Her daughter -- Nicholas' mother -- has two other children now. They live in Kent, Wash., and visit often.
Nicholas was born healthy, and Robbins bonded with him at first touch. As she held him in the hospital, his body curled against her neck, the downy hair like satin against her cheek. His small arm reached out and brushed her cheek.
"It was as if to say, 'Hello Grandma!'" Robbins said. "I knew then, there was something very special about him and that I'd always be close to him."
Months later, after Nicholas was so profoundly abused, Child Protective Services tried to remove him from his mother's care and put him in an institution.
Robbins said no.
"I wanted him to stay in the family," she said. But it took some persuading to get CPS to agree.
"I really do feel it's God's mission for me," Robbins said.
After Nicholas goes to school each morning, Robbins settles into her routine -- listening to the news and game shows on TV, doing the laundry, preparing supper.