For most families, a trip around the world would be the adventure of a lifetime.
For Edith Lemay and Sébastien Pelletier, it became something more.
It was a journey shaped by love, uncertainty and a devastating diagnosis — and by two parents determined not to let fear dictate how their children experienced the years ahead.
The French Canadian couple, based in Montreal, are parents to four children: Mia, Léo, Colin and Laurent.
Their family life changed dramatically when they learned that three of those children — Mia, Colin and Laurent — had retinitis pigmentosa, or RP, a group of rare inherited eye diseases that progressively damage the retina.
There was no way for the parents to know exactly how quickly their children's eyesight would change.
There was no simple cure that could make the diagnosis disappear.
What they did know was that the world their children could see clearly today might look very different to them in the future.
Faced with that reality, Edith and Sébastien made an extraordinary decision.
They would take their children to see as much of the world as possible.
Not someday.
Now.
They would show them mountains and deserts, oceans and wildlife. They would experience unfamiliar cultures, sleep in strange places, meet people whose lives looked completely different from their own and watch sunsets on the other side of the planet.
Their goal was not to pretend the diagnosis did not exist.
It was almost the opposite.
They knew they could not control what retinitis pigmentosa might eventually take away.
But they could decide what to do with the time they had.
And so the Pelletier family began a journey that would eventually capture international attention and become the subject of the National Geographic documentary Blink.
The Diagnosis That Changed Everything
The family's experience with retinitis pigmentosa began with their eldest daughter, Mia.
National Geographic reports that Mia was diagnosed with the condition at age seven. Her younger brothers Colin and Laurent were subsequently diagnosed as well.
Léo, the couple's other son, does not have RP.
For parents, hearing that one child has a progressive vision disorder would be difficult enough.
Learning that three children have it fundamentally changed the future the family had imagined.
Retinitis pigmentosa is not one single disease. According to the U.S. National Eye Institute, the name describes a group of rare eye diseases that affect the retina — the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye.
The retina contains specialized cells called photoreceptors that detect light and help turn it into signals the brain can interpret as vision.
With RP, these cells gradually deteriorate.
The process is progressive, meaning vision generally worsens over time.
One of the most common early symptoms is difficulty seeing at night or in dim environments. Peripheral vision can then decline, gradually narrowing a person's visual field.
For some people, this produces what is commonly described as tunnel vision.
As the disease progresses, central vision may also be affected.
The National Eye Institute notes that the speed and extent of vision loss can vary significantly from one person to another.
That uncertainty became part of the Pelletier family's reality.
Their children could see.
But nobody could tell their parents exactly how long their current level of vision would last.
A Mother's Idea
As Edith processed what the diagnosis meant, she began thinking about how she could prepare her children for an uncertain future.
One suggestion she encountered was to surround them with books and photographs so they could build up visual memories.
The idea sparked something much bigger.
Instead of simply showing the children pictures of elephants, mountains, oceans and distant landscapes, why not take them to see those things themselves?
Why look at a giraffe in a book if they could someday stand in front of a real one?
Why show them photographs of mountains when they could climb through spectacular landscapes?
Why limit the world to pictures when the world itself was still available to them?
The idea evolved into a family mission.
Edith and Sébastien wanted to fill their children's lives with experiences.
They began creating what they thought of as a visual bucket list.
But the goal was never simply to accumulate photographs inside the children's minds like files stored on a computer.
Travel offered something much richer.
There would be smells.
Sounds.
Textures.
Conversations.
Fear.
Excitement.
Laughter.
Exhaustion.
Food they had never tasted.
Languages they did not understand.
Animals they had only seen in pictures.