While many Americans are hoping for better tomorrows with a changing of the guard in The White House, this can be a tall order given the media’s whirlwind of depressing conflicts boom-boxed across the land. And the latter can be overlooked by parents when it comes to our children of tender years and beyond who are waging their own inner battles to cope.
As a single mom working full-time, I missed such a cue on one occasion with my deaf son. At eight years old, just as he was about to master a new two-wheeler, our “fall-and-get-back-on routine” stopped abruptly when he pushed the bike into a wall while walking away and signing, “Finished!”
Her brother couldn’t stop laughing. “She doesn’t have a story. She’s a girl, she plays with dolls, and she almost never talks!”
Typically, I would have gone the tough-love route by taking away an activity he loved for a while amid protests and tears. But this was different — an alarm went off. I had to get inside his head to find out what was going on. And all I had at the ready was a memory before he was born, when I was single and employed as an attorney.
At the end of each workday, I looked forward to a young duo of brother and sister in my neighborhood where we all lived outside of Princeton. They greeted me at day’s end with smiles, waves, and sometimes small chats on my front porch. I noticed, however, that the five-year-old girl rarely offered a word or two, preferring to express herself with gestures and expressions. I’d ask, “Where is your mom today?” and she would point to a nearby backyard where her mom was hanging laundry out to dry.
So I tried a different tack to bring her into the conversation. “OK. Your brother has told me all about his baseball game today. Tell me your story — not from a book or anyone else. Your story.”
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Her brother couldn’t stop laughing and shaking his head. “She doesn’t have a story! She’s a girl, she plays with dolls, and she almost never talks!”
But showing spunk, she yelled back, “No! I have a story nobody knows about!”
“Go ahead, then,” I said, as I nudged her brother. “We will sit here quietly and listen to your story.”
There was a pause of calm before this little one raised herself to her feet and began to sing a melody of her own, beginning with the words: “I am a mouse. I can dance! I am a mouse. I can sing….”
Much later, I found out from her mom she had joined a dance class and a choir at church, leaving just one small problem at home. As her mom put it, “She can talk until the cows come home.”
As lovely as this memory was to revisit, talking in that way was not an option for my distressed son, but I could help him find the way “home” to himself — and me.
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I checked the front page of our local paper, which he loved to read. A big spread of a smashed sports car told the tale of a teenage boy who had been killed during a joy ride with a college kid at the wheel. The accident was near a playground where my son loved to catch sight of the passing trains with his hands to the ground to “hear” it as it rumbled by.
I walked into his room where he sat cross-legged on the floor and knelt beside him. Using American Deaf culture’s traditional hug that includes three soft pats on the back, I asked him to tell me his story.
He pointed to his science and history books from school, and to my astonishment, he grabbed a piece of paper and wrote: “The world is wronging and misleading!”
Ignoring his grammatical errors, I knew what he meant. The story had begun and nothing could halt its progress. As he talked, I learned about the perils of being an American deaf kid, too often afraid of a world that no adult seemed able to “fix.”
Having understood, though, what promises or assurances could I make that all would be well forever? Then a thought flashed through my mind — a way to bring us “home” to ourselves as part of a journey that might last all our lives. “Let’s tell each other our stories. Let them be heard and be seen, as far as the eyes can see or ears can hear.”
He knocked the air once with his fist: “Yes!”
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Twenty-two years later, our pact remains solid. With the campaign won by our new president-elect, Donald J. Trump, my son takes his lunch break from work and often bursts into our home with enthusiasm, something he hasn’t done in years. He signs at a clip, “Good news! The days of Obama are finished! President Trump will stop what Obama has done to America and to the world!”
Then he gives us a copy of his latest story or post to former deaf classmates, encompassing all the sea-to-shining-sea schools for the deaf he attended until graduating from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in New York. Not to omit his award-winning poetry and essays published in a variety of venues.
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As for this mom, telling my story is akin to eating or breathing. I can’t help it, and I thank God that neither can this successful young man with the guts to take a stand while speaking his mind loud and clear — with sign — and beyond.
The author, a retired attorney, is a published poet, writer, and columnist based in Arizona.
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