Blind Fort Worth-area girl tackles world with boundless energy. ‘She amazes us daily.’

Sometimes life’s greatest lessons come from those who don’t even realize they are old enough to teach them.

Seven-year-old Savannah Fornal, or Savvy as she likes to be called, is teaching everyone around her that a life without eyesight can still be a fantastic life. Though she’s blind, she views the world in a way that many would envy.

For example, she loves reading. And while others see her doing so in braille, to her she’s simply reading and loving the same books as her fellow students and friends.

“It’s just dots that form letters,” the first-grader at Willie Brown Academy in Mansfield said. “An A is one dot, a B is two dots on top of each other. I can do the whole alphabet in braille.”

Savvy wasn’t born blind. She became so in the summer of 2017 after complications from the second of four surgeries for a brain tumor.

“I think I might have been kinda scared,” Savvy said, trying to remember when she was only 4 years old.

Whatever fear and shock she had then is long gone now. Savvy, like others her age, is focusing on being a kid.

Along with the blindness, Savvy has several other challenges, such as an adrenaline deficiency and having no pituitary gland, her mother, Michelle Fornal, said. Michelle also said that Savvy has to receive growth hormone shots and gets an MRI every year, but none of that is stopping the always bouncy youth.

“She’s so vibrant, sometimes I forget she’s blind,” Michelle said.

“She has endless energy,” added her dad, Michael Fornal. “She said to me one time, ‘I kind of like being blind. It’s a new way to experience life. That attitude is amazing.”

Savvy also knows her way around school. With the help of Mansfield school district officials, she was allowed to go in a few days early and navigate herself through so she would have the same independence as other children when it came time to go to class.

“Her goal was for me to let her go, and she walks down three hallways to her class,” Michelle said.

“And one of them is a long hallway with a lot of kids walking around. It doesn’t bother her,” Michael said.

“She just had to believe she could do it, like many other things in her life — and she’s doing them,” Michelle said.

Savvy added with a laugh, “But I’m still trying to learn a few places, like the cafeteria.”

Savvy also likes playing the role of big sister to her younger brother, Lex, who recently turned 2. This past Halloween she accompanied him to a party dressed as her favorite superhero — Wonder Woman, of course.

Savvy loves to try new things, including music. She has a drum set and three ukuleles. She also wants to be a singer when she grows up, she said.

Savvy also belongs to a running club, a crafting club, and she rides horses every week at Paws for Reflection Ranch in Midlothian, a nonprofit therapy ranch.

“When she lost her sight, she was timid at first, and going to the ranch really helped her,” Michelle said.

“This year she rode by herself, even made the horse turn by herself,” Michael said.

Cassandra Porter, her instructor at Paws for Reflection, said Savvy is “growing into a well-rounded equestrian.”

“Despite everything she was going through, she was still willing to try new things. She started riding English, which is hard enough for someone without a special limitation.

“Since then she has grown by leaps and bounds. She amazes us daily, and has touched the hearts of all who meet her.”

Savvy, with her infectious positivity, is also very popular with her schoolmates.

“Everybody wanted to be her friend. A lot of the kids wanted to help guide her to class and read to her before she could read herself, but teachers have told kids to let her do things on her own,” Michelle said.

Among the things Savvy remembers from when she could see are colors. She sometimes associates them with people in her life, including the different sides of herself. For example, she said Savvy is purple, but Savannah is sort of a white-greenish.

“She’ll connect a person with a color, and three weeks later the same color will be associated with the same person,” Michelle said.

Her parents said there is some truth to the old adage that when a person loses one sense, the others are heightened.

“I can tiptoe around her on a carpet and she can still hear me,” Michelle said.

“We were in the park and she ran about 40 yards straight to me,” Michael said. “It was the most amazing thing to see. She didn’t detour at all.”

And Savvy has no plans on detouring from a full, productive, joyful life. In fact, she’s already planning her next great adventure in learning.

She wants to learn to play keyboards and trumpet.

“They just sound like cool instruments to learn,” she said, adding with her popular smile, “and maybe I can have my own music room.”

This story was originally published February 25, 2020 at 6:00 AM.