Judy Day sits in the front of the class resting her eyes, all the while lightly mouthing back facts of the Seven Years War as the instructor lectures on the material.

Her eyes need rest because the strain to keep them open gives her headaches. She can’t see well enough to take notes, which explains the recorder sitting atop the large print notebook her daughter compiled for her.

Her hand rests near a cane she uses to get around the Copiah-Lincoln Community College’s Natchez campus early in the morning after stepping off a Natchez Transit bus.

Day is doing well in her first two summer terms back at school, and she said that’s because she isn’t going to let being legally blind get in her way.

“This sight thing does not bother me at all,” Day said. “I can’t see anything out of my left eye. I can see a sliver out of my right eye, but I’m legally blind.”

Several years ago — she can’t remember exactly when — Day woke up one morning unable to see after having a stroke. Later that day at the hospital, limited sight started to come back, but her field of vision was so slim she could no longer identify her hand when she extended it to the front of her.

“I never look at myself as a disabled person,” Day said. “I can still see a little bit. Because of the fact that I’m not totally blind, I look at it as an adventure.”

Day didn’t always look at it so cheerfully. After two strokes and going legally blind, Day had to learn to walk and talk again, and she said she’s still learning to talk as well as she once did.

She was also put on prescription pills for pain, and Day said she used them to the point of depression. All she would do was lay in bed or sit and listen to the TV. Day said she felt like she was dying, wasting away, but she found help in her daughter, Katherine Felter.

“Katherine helped me get off of those pills,” Day said. “Now I feel a whole lot better without them. I hurt sometimes, but I just go with it.”

Everything changed once she cleared her mind of the narcotic influence, she said. Day even decided to go to school.

“I had to get up and do something, I had been so upset with myself,” she said. “I wanted to go back to school years ago, but I was always working for my family. Then when I got older, I was always sick.”

The time for making excuses was over, so one day her sister, Beth Dawes, took her to Copiah-Lincoln Community College to check the school out, and Day, as a 65-year-old non-traditional student, decided to sign up for the summer.

For the first summer term, Day took music appreciation and a computer class, in which she made two Bs. She is on track to make an A in her history class during her second summer term.

Day said she is still getting used to computers, but if the text is blown up big enough, she can see it a little for a short period of time.

“I can do certain things,” she said. “I have to rest my eyes after 15 minutes, so it’s hard to do by myself.”

Co-Lin Coordinator of Outreach and Student Success Zach Moulds was one of her first contacts at Co-Lin. He’s now her history teacher, but at first she needed to work through his office to set up accommodations for her being legally blind.

“Zach has done so much for me,” she said. “He thought I would do good, and I am doing good. He helped give me a reason to go back to school.”

Moulds said it’s been a privilege getting to know Day.

“It took some guts for Judy to make the decision to give school a try after being out for so long, but I know that she’s happy that she did,” he said. “I can honestly say that her determination to succeed impresses me the most.”

Moulds and Gina Bandy in the admission office help Day with tests, which are given in Moulds’ office. The tests are given verbally, and she said they are typically essay questions.

Preparing for those tests, Day uses her recorder. But Moulds also has a classmate taking notes for her. This term it is Reagan Denny.

Denny writes her notes large, and then they take them to the admissions office to blow the text up even larger.

From there, Day and her daughter, Felter, talk through them and condense the notes while writing them large in a bold black Sharpie into the notebook Day carries around. Felter also reads the notes aloud to her.

“Katherine has been invaluable,” Day said. “It’s almost like the roles have reversed, and she treats me like a daughter. I can’t say enough about her.”

Day’s son, Ted Guyse, and Felter’s children, Jack, 9, Lily, 8, and Riley, 5, have also helped in their own ways.

“I want to take Spanish, and my son took it for four years, so we talk all the time,” she said. “It’s funny with my grandchildren. I used to correct them when they said a word wrong, but now that I’m learning how to speak again, they are the ones correcting me when I say a word wrong.”

Felter said on a test week, she’s at her mother’s house almost every night. Last week, leading up to a test she took on Thursday — on which she ultimately made an A — Felter was there for more than two hours Tuesday and a little more than an hour Wednesday.

“This has made her happy,” Felter said. “She had gotten to where she was just sitting around all day in a bad way.

“But as soon as she got the itch to go back to school, it’s all she talks about. She’s a lot happier.”

Felter said in helping her mother study, she is also enjoying the time.

“When she was doing music appreciation, I tried to show her how to use YouTube so she could hear it, but she’s still not very computer savvy,” Felter said, laughing. “It’s also fun getting to learn about stuff I haven’t thought of in 15 years.”

Day doesn’t limit her studies to nighttime, though. In every class, she’s quick to join or create a study group that meets early in the morning.

“Going to school at Co-Lin, they treat me like family,” she said. “Every time I am going to school, it’s like I am going to see family.

“They don’t treat me like I am an old lady, they treat me like I am one of them.”

Day said after being a guard at Angola State Penitentiary for a number of years and also serving in that same role in the Mississippi system, she is hoping to do something in the criminal justice field.

“I’m still trying to figure out what area of criminal justice would best suit me,” she said.

Whatever she ends up doing career wise, Day said she is excited to have a goal for which to strive, and she’s ready to get her fall classes finalized so she can get back at it.

“I feel fortunate because I have got something to live for,” she said. “I feel like I have a life now, and that means all the world to me.

“Everything is good, I’m just wonderful. I’m so happy to be alive right now.”