Page 254 - The Exceptional Harley Fetterman

JUDY K JOHNSON

NFBTX.org posted an online article about Harley's passing and
announced a special scholarship fund, administered by the National
Federation of the Blind of Texas Scholarship Committee, had been
established in Harley's honor and would be awarded at the 2016
Annual Banquet.

Beth continued to be involved with the National Federation of the
blind. She gave this speech at the 2016 NFBTX State Convention:

“I'd like to start out by saying I hope I don't mess this up. Harley
was the speaker in our family and he'd be really upset if I did that.”
“Hi, I'm Beth Freeborn. I was known as Harley's mom for eighteen
years. Thirteen years of that, my life was dedicated to helping Harley
reach his maximum potential by getting him to camps and
conventions and programs that could help him to be a successful,
independent adult. For many of those years, I watched him flourish as
a member of the NFB family.”
“It's a little difficult for me to come to this convention. You see in
the past, I usually sat in at least one meeting where Harley would
speak and I was accustomed to hearing gasps of delight as he
explained that he had been to the National Braille Challenge multiple
times, knew Nemeth Code and Braille music, and played several
musical instruments. His dream was to invent a 2½ D screen that
could display not only Braille text but tactual charts and graphs and
possibly pictures. But that's not something I will hear today.”

“One of the biggest fears for a parent who has lost a child is that
their child will be forgotten, so we tend to do things to remind people
that our child existed. For this reason, I want to tell you it means a lot
to me and his family that you honor Harley by naming this
scholarship after him.”
“But the truth is that there will be a time when none of you (no one
will be left who will) remember what Harley accomplished in his
short life or who he was. This is his legacy, so it is in the past. Even if
he were here today, eventually he would have been replaced by
another precocious child with big plans and dreams as Harley went
on to other things, not quite forgotten, just not the same. It was
inevitable. Harley is the past.”

238