Willothewisp

My wife is in a grumpy, grizzly mood. It does not happen very often which I guess is why it’s so noticeable when she is. The problem is that she is not allowed to use her hand for a few weeks, she has to rest it. Ten years ago a maniac smashed it, along with an awful lot of the rest of her,  and now the old injuries flare up every so often. All that can be done is to rest it and use herbs to reduce the inflammation back down to manageable levels. The up-shot of this is that she cannot do many of the things that keeps my love happy, so no writing, no gardening, and easy on the creative cooking.  She can  use it for child care essentials only. It would be less of a problem if she was not deaf, but she is and as a result writing is that much more important to her and thus the restriction of it more of a problem. 

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It seems trivial doesn’t it ?

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Nothing about communication is trivial for the deaf.

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Many of us hearing mortals assume that the worst thing about being deaf must be not hearing music, or  our children’s voices, even the sound of rain drops on the roof. We are wrong. I live with two deaf people and trust me the loss of these is not what cuts deep. What hurts and angers them is communication.

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We cannot appreciate just what lengths they have go to in order to communicate with the world about them. They spend thousands of hours practicing reading lips, learning facial and body language and believe me when I say it is a difficult process requiring a degree of humility most people do not possess. They practice sign language for many more thousands of hours, even though it can only connect them to other deaf people and the so very few of us who take the trouble to learn. All the time they learn these things knowing as they do that no mater how skilled they become they will never be treated as equal to those of us who can hear. For the most part they will be seen and treated as less than us, they will face discrimination at every turn and will have to fight twice as hard for every bit of progress they make. So you can see that communication  develops an importance to the deaf well beyond the hearing’s ability to relate to. You will find that many deaf people write, garden, cook, paint, or sculpt, it is their desire to communicate, express and connect finding an outlet.

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Judith writes, a lot, about everything. She writes in Dutch and English  and is currently working on a couple of books. Normally she has a laptop open and on when ever she is working in the house and in between drawing with the children, cleaning, chopping and stirring she will tap down a few words. She is not a woman who can ever do just one thing at a time. With her hand being a problem she is no longer able to dance over her keyboard when she has a moment and a thought. Our garden is another outlet for her but right now that avenue is also closed to her. To her it is bordering on being mute all over again, and that left a deep mark on her the first time. So now I am trying to keep her occupied in other ways, like crafts with the children where they can do most of the work, getting our god daughter in to sit the children so she and I can enjoy some long walks in the autumn evenings, and some extra early evenings to have some adult time together, because making love is another form of creative expression, one a team of wild horses could not stop her enjoying.

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Never take the ability to just listen and speak for granted because it buys you the ability to communicate and that buys you inclusion into the world and that is a very precious thing.

 

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Author: Nina van der Roos