Yesterday, I did a Sykpe session with a lip reading deaf person and it triggered memories of a decades old awakening.
When my children were 9 months and 2 years, my wife suffered multiple fractures in an auto wreck and was confined to a wheelchair for four months, undergoing multiple surgeries and rehab. Unable to chase after a very mobile toddler and a pin ball 9 month old, who careened about the house in his unsafe-at-any-speed roller ball device, we realized we'd need to hire a nanny to care for the children for a few months.
Indoor demolition machine
I got a call at the office and my wife sounded odd. "I've found our nanny," she said.
"What's wrong?"
She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. "You won't like her."
"Why?"
"But she's the best by far. She ignored me, and got right down on the floor and started playing with both kids and they loved her. All the others talked to me and ignored the kids or looked slightly horrified by them--not that I can blame them. Reid nearly crippled one with his roller derby thing."
"So what's wrong?"
"She's from Galludet."
Galludet is the college for deaf people in Washington, D.C.
"What!?!"
"She not completely deaf. She can talk to you and read lips and she still hears a lot, but she's going to be completely deaf in the next few years."
"No way!" I protested. "Suppose one of the kids falls down the stairs and she's in the next room and can't hear that."
"She can hear that much. She's my choice."
My wife knew I was pretty intolerant of deaf people. I didn't like seeing them gesticulating (signing) at restaurants. Don't know why that bothered me but it did. I had always been impatient with disabilities, less with blind people for some reason, more with deaf people. Dealing with deaf people in the office always slowed me down and impatience has always been a problem for me. I found deaf people particularly annoying, especially older people who didn't wearing hearing aides but really, just seeing deaf people signing irritated me for reasons I could not explain.
But the boss prevailed and within days Estella moved in.
She arrived with a TTY machine which allowed us to get the equivalent of text messages on a home phone, so we could answer phone calls from Estella's friends at Galludet. (This was before cell phones, just at the dawn of the internet age. We had computers but cell phones were still a few years away.) And, given Estella's active love life, and boyfriends, the TTY machine became the focus of no few romantic dramas.
In fact, we got to know dozens of Estella's deaf or going deaf friends. We learned that deaf co-eds have all sorts of romantic intrigues and deaf boys are no more a match for girls than their hearing males. I found myself covering for Estella when she slipped out for clandestine assignations with a new boyfriends. She occasionally asked for an opinion about a new boyfriend--why she thought I would be a good judge, I have no idea, but she seemed interested in my opinion. I did like her engineer boyfriend a little better than her political science major, for some reason. I liked all her girlfriends, who were irreverent and lots of fun. But mostly, I just saw them coming and going from our house, as I got home late most days.
My wife's instinct proved correct. Estella was a godsend. She carried the 9 month old on her hip everywhere and she was quick and agile enough to cope with the 2 year old who had started walking at 8 months, and could now race up and down the three levels of our house with lynx like quickness.
She drove our car and took the kids to Galludet football games, where they were a big hit with her 20 something friends and she made life possible for us, allowing me to stay at the office and keep our financial heads above water.
We met lots of Estella's deaf friends, and they were a winning group. Two of her friends, very pretty young ladies, would eventually bicycle cross country with her. They were all funny, full of energy and life and they made our home, encumbered by a hospital bed and home rehab devices, more of a playground than an old age home.
They told us about things we never considered, like the difficulty dealing with repairmen over the phone if you're deaf, difficulties dealing with police and government agencies and we realized just how difficult life for the deaf could be, and how easy solutions could be, if only the hearing world would make minimal effort.
But most of all, we learned how fiercely proud of their deaf world these people were, how they asked nothing more than to be allowed to participate and contribute and thrive, which surely they would.
After 4 months, my wife regained her mobility and was able to take our now 13 month old tyke to the grocery store, plop him into a shopping cart, in the seat facing her, as she worked her way up and down the aisles. He was pre verbal, having a few words, but mostly he just pointed to things and grunted.
Waving his arms around, especially when he was rolled in front of stuff he particularly desired, like the cereal section with Honey Nut Cheerios and Fruit Loops (which Estella had introduced him to, and which we would otherwise have never allowed in the house) this enfant terrible was busy gesticulating when a woman approached and started in with the fingers and mouthing we had seen Estella do so often with her friends.
Back and forth with our 13 month old, she laughed and signed and carried on for several minutes before turning to my wife, much amused by whatever my son had to say.
She started signing to my wife, who realized she was signing, having seen enough of that from Estella and her friends, but she had to simply smile and say, "I'm sorry. I don't sign."
"You don't sign?" the woman expostulated. "And you with a deaf, signing child?"
She gave my wife a withering look of distain and horror, and stomped off to find a child abuse official somewhere in Giant Food store.
I got a furious phone call at the office.
"Did you know Reid signs?"
"Signs? What sort of signs?"
"You know, sign language. What Estella does!"
"But he doesn't talk."
"Well, he may not talk, but he sure as hell signs up a storm. Had a very lively conversation with some woman at Giant today, who looked at me like some sort of child abuser today when she realized I did not sign. And me with a deaf, signing child I could not possibly communicate with because I'm too lazy to learn to sign. I'm am sure I will be getting a visit from the Montgomery County child welfare department any day now."
"Wait! He converses?"
"Apparently. Who knew? He only grunts at me, but with this lady, he has prolonged conversation."
"Oh," Estella said, when my wife got home and stormed into her room. "Well, yes. He's a bit chatty," she said. "He's got a pretty big vocabulary for a little kid."
"What does he talk about?"
"Oh, food mostly. But he's also a pretty big football fan."
"What!?!"
"You knew I took him to the football games."
"Yes, but..."
Estella left us by the next Spring, when she went off with her two friends to ride bicycles cross country. Within a year our son was communicating verbally and having not seen Estella after she returned to Galludet and gone back to campus, he lost his signing.
But, difficult as that time was, with a mother learning to walk again and kids demanding various things and a business needing constant attention, Estella's time with us was undeniably enriching, as we got an insider's view of the deaf world and we were, none of us in our house, ever the same since.
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