See Saw

The Albert Plevier Trilogy is the remarkable true story of one man's near-death experience after a blinding, burning, chemical accident, and the love story of his marriage that refused to be compromised. Book I: Beyond the Eight-Foot World. The first installment of the series describes in real time how twenty-four-year-old, husband, father, and chemical engineer, Albert Plevier, was thrust into the eight-foot-world of the blind on October 1, 1974, in northern New Jersey's notorious chemical industry. He stood frozen in shock, disbelief, and fear, as the concentrated sodium hydroxide spiraled toward his unprotected face and upper body. Time stopped and then it hit. The liquid powered by the motor churned the caustic chemical and tuned his feet into springs. He was blown back onto his left side and positioned between two metal drums and a pipe vise while the force of the liquid kept him pinned. He was burning, he was melting. The chemical was enacting its revenge, as it tried to dissolve the man whose job description required him to dissolve it as its highest level of power. Book II: See Saw, the continuation of our series follows the family's joy at the temporary return of Albert's sight. Initially, Al gauges the progress of his returning vision by staring at bathroom wallpaper. As the image of his scarred body becomes clearer in the mirror hung within the tapestry of the wallpaper, the thrill of his temporarily returned vision is tempered by what he knew his wife Elaine had been looking at for the last two years. The scars were the physical confirmation that he and his family had endured something horrific and moved beyond it. Al stood before the mirror each day, fully appreciating the courage of his marriage and the love that carried them all forward. Without bitterness, Al felt in his heart that he was willing to face the darkness he knew he would eventually be returned to as long as he had his family by his side. Determined not to be deterred from the life plan Al and Elaine had sketched for themselves on the day they married, their family unit grew to include four children, all boys. Together they experienced faith strengthened through the recollection of his near-death experience as they are plunged back into the world of the blind. The young couple relies on their faith to navigate the logistics of a lawsuit with all its mundane, frustrating and humiliating aspects while believing in the realistic hope of a second return of Al's sight through experimental surgery. Al's sight is returned a second time and the lawsuit comes to a close. Believing they had turned a corner and integrated themselves back into the 'normal' world, Al is then plunged back into darkness permanently in an emergency procedure to save his life, once again. Undeterred, he gratefully accepts his role as husband, father, and participant in the larger world with or without the ability to see it.