The parents who created a "visual bucket list" for their 5-year-old daughter who is slowly going blind started by showing her wondrous sights close to their Ohio home. They never dreamed she'd get to see Rome someday. Elizabeth "Lizzy" Myers and her family will travel to Italy sometime next spring thanks to Turkish Airlines, whose general manager was touched by the little girl's story and her parents' wish that she see many amazing things before a rare genetic condition robs her of her sight, or most of it. The airline offered up round-trip tickets to anywhere in the world, and the family—from Bellville, Ohio, 60 miles north of Columbus—chose one of the most visual places they could think of.
Lizzy was recently diagnosed with Usher Syndrome Type II, which causes hearing and progressive vision loss. Her parents have five to seven years to get her out to see things. Her dad says he was uneasy and reluctant when people started coming forward and offering money and other things to the family after their story was first featured in the Mansfield News Journal last week. But he says they couldn't pass up the chance to take Lizzy somewhere they couldn't have visited otherwise. For Lizzy's part, she doesn't know what is beginning to happen to her sight, and her parents haven't attempted to explain it to the happy little girl who's still deciding if she wants to be a princess or a mermaid when she grows up. (This baby melted hearts when she wore glasses for the first time.)