She wore dark glasses and tapped her way down the sidewalk with her cane, a thick white bulb on the end of it.

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Through the tap of her cane, which, like an echolocating bat, sends a small sound out into the world, she could detect the size and constituents of the space through which she was walking.

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In October 2011, Borawski walked to her mailbox without a cane for the first time.

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The story describes how she was not pleased with the ugly black cane they gave her to steady herself after cataract surgery.

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When a grandmotherly type strolled by, propped up by an assistant and a cane, she wound up lifting her walking stick and pointed it in my direction.

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As we neared an awning overhanging the sidewalk, she heard the awning -- because the cane-tap sound bounced back at her changed, closer.

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After ten months of Lokomat training and other rehab, she can walk five blocks with a cane and plans to move back into her third-floor walk-up apartment this month.

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Clearly separated from the tourist costume of T-shirts, baseball caps and running shoes, a local aristocratic lady also dressed in black, with a gold-handled onyx cane, good jewelry and noble upright posture, entered her apartment building.

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True to her personality and her love of making others laugh, Grandma Pearl decided to decorate the cane with artificial flowers in pink and purple.

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