Showing mettle

Sarah Brazer, a senior at Costa Mesa High School, was born blind. She sees only in big blurs and dark images. If she’s lucky and the letters are written large enough, she’ll be able to read them, but only with a magnifying glass.

She’ll probably never drive.

And yet since the moment Brazer was diagnosed with visual impairment when she was 4 months old, she’s been getting on with life just like everybody else — thanks largely to her mother, Jennifer Brazer, who made sure she received the appropriate schooling.

These days, Sarah Brazer is a common sight around the high school campus, with her black Labrador, Foreman, a guide dog she’s had for about six months. Foreman’s become her saving grace, pulling her away from obstacles that Brazer simply fails to see ahead of her.

“He’s an amazing dog. He’s changed my life. I’ve become so independent with him,” said Brazer, 18, who walks to school with Foreman’s help. “He’s a constant companion. Every day, he helps me. I don’t know how I ever lived without him.”

Brazer recently received a medal, “Students Succeeding,” which the California Assn. of School Administrators gave to nearly a dozen Orange County students for overcoming obstacles in the face of odds, such as autism, dyslexia or, in Brazer’s case, being blind and still able to get around on her own.

She is on track to graduate in May from Costa Mesa High.

She hopes to attend Orange Coast College, before transferring to a four-year university to likely study music. She loves to sing and wants to combine her talent by teaching others how to sing, whether in choir or the classroom.

“The fact that I’ve overcome ‘obstacles’ isn’t a big deal,” she said. “So does everyone else.”

Even though the medal may not mean that much to Brazer, it means the world to her mother, an accountant with three daughters.

“Her grandma came, and we were like fountains,” Jennifer Brazer said, recounting last week’s award ceremony. “The tears were flowing.”

Jennifer Brazer said that since Sarah was 3, she’s been involved in the educational system, which is why she’s gotten as far as she has. She attended the Blind Children’s Learning Center in Tustin as an infant, where she, among other things, learned how to crawl.

Then came Braille, then ballet. She’s gone snow skiing, and family members had to hold her back on a recent water skiing venture.

“She’s crazy,” her mother laughed. “She’ll do anything. She’s not afraid of anything.”

Well, maybe one thing.

As a child growing up blind, her mother said, she is somewhat reserved and tends to isolate herself instead of joining conversations that kids are having in the hallways, cafeteria or classrooms.

“People should understand this,” Jennifer Brazer said. “Just think about it. If you walk into a room and you can’t see and you hear people talking, you’re either going to be open or closed about joining in.

“I think people just don’t know how to say, ‘Hey, Sarah, we’re here if you want to join us.’”

That’s not to say that Sarah doesn’t have friends. Her best friends are her sisters, Mary, 15, and Katie, 20.

And new horizons await.

“I really hope to become a music teacher,” she said. “I love to sing.”