Willothewisp

“Some people, those who have never been fortunate enough to fall in love, truly in love, think that it happens just once with that person, but in fact it starts with just the once and if you are very, very lucky you then go on to fall in love all over again every single day you are together for the rest of your lives.

I fall in love with her every day as we wake and the first thing I see is her sleeping face, every time she smiles as she wakes. Her smile is the sun rising into my life. For eight years I have seen her smiles deepen the laugh lines like parentheses on her lovely cheeks, setting her mouth off from the sentence of her face as though it were a secret known only to me.”

These words were written by Judith a couple of years ago as part of a lovely story of love, passion, and wonderful celebratory sex. Ever since I read these words the passage stuck in my mind having sparked one of those “Yes!” moments.

Cees, Peter, Mia, Nonke and I would like to wish Judith and Nina a very happy anniversary, May 12th will mark their 11th year together.

If you are new to this site, or a casual visitor you might not be aware of the extraordinary and painful events that brought them together, but from that dreadfull time we have watched this beautiful partnership grow as they have both grown. Despite some continuing challanges they have forged ahead to build a nurturing home for four children.
When Nina started dating Judith I seriously wondered if poor Nina had any idea of what she was getting herself into but then as I came to know her I realised that she knew exactly what she had gotten into, indeed she was just where she wanted to be. She has a warrior spirit and one who had found a cause she that felt was worth fighting for, it was perfect timing and Judith’s very good fortune. In return Judith brought the partnership the stability offered by a rock solid family ethic and the discipline of a sharply focused mind.
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Happy Anniversary my darlings.
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Lots of Love from all of us, XXXX
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The screaming headline on the front page of Germany’s big newspaper Bild seemed to say it all “The Greeks want even more billions from us! – 25,000,000,000 Euro !” it shouted out in huge type face.

The paper was positively apoplectic in response to alarming estimates which confirm that if Germany (and most of the EU Euro Zone) is to bail out Athens, it will have to put three times the amount of money on the table than the sum that was being discussed only days ago, and that is just for one year. A German friend summed up the German view;

“Suddenly our politicians have got billions of euros for Greece. It is a country that has been living beyond its means for decades. It has lied and cheated as a nation to get the Euro. Then it lied to hell and back to the rest of Europe.Their politicians and civil government (there is a joke in itself!) are no better than common fraudsters, and the Greek people have been their accomplices”.

• Greece’s 180,000 teachers would give it one of the world’s best teacher-student ratios but about 20,000 teachers are in administration because there are no classrooms for them.
• One small state school on a tiny island was found to have 15 physical-education teachers, while another had more teachers than students.
• A senior government official says some tax offices operate a “4-4-2 system,” a reference to soccer tactics. If an individual or company owes €10,000 in taxes, they slip €4,000 to the inspector, keep €4,000, and pay €2,000 to the state.
• In the month before last autumn’s election, the government added 27,000 people – friends of the party – to the public payroll. Many had no position to fill, and not even an office to go to.
• The health-care system is a hotbed of corrupt procurement. Many hospitals do not use proper accounting, making it hard to supervise purchases. As a result, public hospitals ran up billions of euros in suppliers’ bills they cannot pay. The previous government understated those liabilities by more than € 5 billion when it gave European authorities an overly optimistic budget forecast last fall. Think about that figure for a moment,  € 5 billion !
• Government employees can get paid 13 to 15 months salary a year.
• Parliament employees and Members of Parliament have beem receiving, in addition to the 13th and 14th salaries, a 15th and a 16th, tax-exempt salary, upon opening and closing of Parliament!
• Government employees can get a “long service bonus”
• Government employees can get a bonus for turning up to work regularly
• Government employees can get a “special holiday bonus”
• Government spending accounted for 50 percent of GDP (USA is 35%).
• Only 450,000 citizens (4% of the population) pay direct taxes, while the rest evade illegally.
• Further, only 37,000 homeowners (0.34%) pay property taxes.
• The bailout is predicted to bring down Greece’s deficit-to-GDP ratio from 8.1 percent to 2.6 percent by 2014, putting it under the Euro zone’s recommendation. But the bailout will do nothing for the debt-to-GDP ratio — except raise it, from 133 percent this year to 144 percent in 2014.
• Under the bailout, Greeks government empoyees must now work until they are 67 years old. Up until now, they have been able to retire with pensions at 53 complete with bonuses!

Bribery & Corruption

In Greece two words sum the country up:fakelaki and rousfeti.

Fakelaki means “little envelopes,” the bribes that affect everyone, police, doctors, patients, business people, everyone. Rousfeti means expensive political favors, which pervade everything. If you are a teacher and want a job, if you want to rebuild your house, get electricity connected, you name it. Together, these traditions of corruption and cronyism have produced a state that is simultaneously bloated and malnourished.

Bribery, patronage and other public corruption are major contributors to the country’s ballooning debt, depriving the Greek state each year of the equivalent of at least 8% of its gross domestic product (GDP), or more than €20 billion ($27 billion) according to the Brookings Institution. Even Greece’s Prime Minister George Papandreou said after he took office late last year, vowing to change a mentality that views the state as a resource to plunder. He later berated the chief of public prosecutions, saying Greeks believe “there is impunity in this country.” but in true Greek fashion the chief prosecutor continued in his delusional state and said that wasn’t so. 13.5% of Greek households paid a bribe, €1,355 on average, according to a Transparency survey published last month. Ordinary citizens hand out cash-filled envelopes to get driver’s licenses, doctor’s appointments and building permits, or to reduce their tax bills.

Incompetent & Corrupt Government

In 2007, the government was found to have sold billions of euros in overpriced, complex securities to public pension funds, resulting in large losses at the funds. Shortfalls have to be covered by the government, worsening the budget deficit. Following a public outcry, a state commission on money laundering probed some of the transactions, concluding that there were “clear indications” of bribery, tax evasion and other wrongdoing by Greek officials.Cases of corruption in public procurement are rarely resolved, thanks to a slow-moving justice system that deters people who have paid bribes from becoming witnesses. Politicians have escaped corruption charges because probes often are held up in parliament until a statute of limitations expires. The public prosecutors’ office, dismissed the findings because the report was signed only by the head of the money-laundering commission, not by every member. The head of the commission was fired, basically for telling the truth and being honest !

The national sport is bribery of tax officials allows individuals and companies to bribe inspectors and evade taxes so there is a dearth of income into the state. Couple this with truly massive overstaffing in public administration, the result of decades of both major political parties creating unnecessary posts for their supporters, saddles the state with a high wage bill.

In short Greece is a nation steeped in state malfeasance populated by amoral fraudsters and theives, one in which every single citizen must bare their share of responsibility, protesting the measures now needed to correct their collective mess just shows how immoral they are in that they cannot recognise their own guilt. The international banks undoubtedly have a measure of guilt but it pales in comparison to that of the entire Greek nation.

But we should not think that Greece alone is to blame. The political class of the EU are equally responsible, driving as they have the continued hurried growth of the EU in the face of common sense, and probity.Not only is Greece a complete basket case it is one that should never have been allowed admittance to the EU, and now it should be thrown out in disgrace. It should also show the rest of the EU the idiocy of unfetted expansion. Sadly the EU political elite will now close ranks and pressure the media into the deflection of their own guilt.

It is Germany and France who really stand to loose out if Greece goes under because French and German banks have been the prime buyers of Greek Government bonds and the biggest lenders. This of course raises the question of the banks competence. Deutsche Bank, Hypo Real Estate, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, and Societe Generale all have a great deal of explaining to do about how their “due diligence” failed to spot Greece’s financial black hole for so long.

Once again the so called “financial experts” have been shown for what they are, a bunch of monkeys with a gigantic bunch of over ripe bananas !

Sitting around here in Amsterdam, not allowed to do anything much during convelesence I decided to wade through the mountain of mail I have. I got as far January’s mail, shamefully far behind I know, when I came to this mail from a young man:

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“In what language do the profoundly deaf think? I think in Dutch, because that’s what I speak. But since deaf people cannot hear, surely they cannot learn how to speak a language but nevertheless, they must think in some language. Would they think in Dutch if they use sign language and read Dutch? How would they do that if they’ve never heard the words they are signing or reading pronounced? Do they just see words in their head, instead of hearing themselves, how on earth do they do it?  The more I think about this the more confused I become. I gather you became deaf well after you learnt language is that right? How about your deaf child does he use the same language as yourself? What about those who are blind in addition to deaf ?”

Henk van S, Naningweg, Ooststellingwerf.

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You are not far off being right in your thinking. Let me explain, but first a little context.

As my deafness was “acquired” in my twenties I had already developed my language (Dutch, English, German). Our son Nicholas was born profoundly deaf, and worse, his biological mother was not in a position to help him develop properly. Then to compound matters he was left in near isolation for the first 20 months of his life, it was nearly disastrous for him. As you can see though we are both deaf we come from almost polar opposites of experience and shows you cannot  just consider deafness to be a single term.  Based on this background I now frame my words.

If you are wondering what it is like to be a mother teaching her deaf child then this video may help you;

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Congenital/Hereditary Deafness

Can we think without language? The short answer is no, at least not at the level of cognition that we humans are accustomed to and this is why Congenital/Hereditary deafness can have far serious consequences. In fact it can be more serious than blindness in the development of the intellect. Being blind is undoubtedly hard, I know this from personal experience,  but even those sightless from birth acquire language by ear without difficulty as they grow up. A congenitally deaf child is not so fortunate because unless a parent, medical worker, teacher etc realizes very early on that she/ he’s not developing language because she/he cannot hear then their grasp of communication in any form may never progress beyond a rudimentary level, this is why one of the very first checks a midwife makes after the birth of a baby is on their hearing.

About one child per twelve hundred in Western Europe is born with no ability to hear whatsoever. The vital age range for language acquisition is 21 to 36 months. During this period children pick up the basics of language with ease (remarkable ease as it happens), and in so doing establish essential cognitive infrastructure in their brains. Beyond this age it is far more difficult. If the congenitally deaf aren’t diagnosed before they start school, they will face severe learning problems for the rest of their lives, though this does not mean that their intelligence is not normal.

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Acquired Deafness

If ,like me, you do not become totally deaf until after you’ve acquired language, your problems are some what more manageable. You think in whatever spoken language you’ve learned, Dutch in my case. If you are still in education when you loose your hearing then given some commonsense accommodation during school/university, you will progress intellectually on a par with any hearing person. In fact in some small ways it can be an advantage, though they are usually far outweighed by the inherent disadvantages. I would always urge anyone with acquired deafness to learn to sign, it is so valuable to link you to others and believe me you will need to take very opportunity you can grasp to link you to the human race that you can seize. One thing I have noticed in the last few years is that I am thinking less in Dutch and much more in Sign.

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Sign Language

The profoundly, prelingually deaf can and do acquire language, sign language. Every country has it’s own sign language. Those not familiar with Sign may suppose that it’s an invented form of communication like Esperanto but it is not. It is an independent and natural language with a heritage as long as many spoken languages, evolved by ordinary people and transmitted culturally from one generation to the next. To the surprise of many it is more similar to Chinese than any other language because a single inflected gesture can convey an entire word or phrase.  Sign can be acquired effortlessly in early childhood, children are wonderfully natural language sponges. My children sign and have even developed their own dialect between them, one which Nina and I often cannot understand, but then I suspect that is the point of it - the little monkeys! Sign is wonderfully expressive and versatile, it  equips users with the ability to manipulate concepts, symbols, describe abstract ideas, actively acquire and process knowledge. I have never met a hearing person who after learning sign has not been impressed with just how rich signing is as a language of artistic expression. Though I can speak and lip read a lot of conversation between Nina and I is in sign, especially when we are exploring complex subjects. It is also wonderful as a language of love.

Unfortunately many hearing people who claim themselves to be  authorities on the subject of deafness have long insisted that the best way to educate the deaf is to teach them spoken language ! As if the astounding arrogance of them were not enough, in the past they often went as far as to  as to employ physically abusive methods to actively suppress signing which was always utterly disastrous for their victims.

The answer to your question “In what language do the profoundly deaf think?” is that they think in Sign. This does of course assume they were fortunate enough to have learned it in infancy/childhood.

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Dutch Sign Language

“Nederlandse Gebarentaal” or “NGT” is the Sign Language used by Congenital/Hereditary deaf people in the Netherlands. Strange as it may seem it is not officially recognised. People like myself who become deaf suddenly or gradually (so-called deaf postlingual) generally use “Nederlands met Gebaren” or “NmG”. Since1995, more and more schools for the deaf in The Netherlands teach “Nederlands met Gebaren”, in English it is ” Dutch with Gestures” and it uses the same grammar as Dutch spoken language. but is supported by Dutch spoken gestures. This support with gestures makes it much more visual. NMG is basically the Dutch lexicon with elements of the grammar of Dutch Sign Language used for visual support. NMG largely follows the grammar of the Dutch language, including all proverbs, sayings and expressions. In contrast Dutch sign language, creates it’s own grammar which is necessary for those who have never heard their own language, this is why the two languages exist happily together.

As our son was deaf from birth he was taught NGT while I originally learnt NMG. I have adapted to NGT though I can switch between the two, while Nina and Hilke use NGT almost exclusively. My son is a very creative child in painting, drawing, crafts, model making, I often just watch him at the big table as I work in the kitchen. While he sits and thinks before he starts a drawing or model I see him moving his hands. It is as though he is sketching out in space his thoughts. When i ask his sister what he is doing she confirms this, in fact she does the same herself when they are sitting together. It seems that despite her being able to hear growing up in a household with two deaf people she has developed her own linguistic thought habits thus crossing the gulf between the world of the hearing and deaf.

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If you would like to see and maybe learn a little Signing at it’s simplest have a look ate the “Lotte & Max” kids books, they are required reading in our household !

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Deaf – Blind

In 2008 I spent a summer with very little sight, offically blind in fact, following a round of surgery. In this period I had to learn to palm-sign. Despite the description “deaf-blind” of deaf-blind people, most are not both totally deaf and totally blind It is a collective name for all variations in the combination of visual impairment / blindness and hearing impairment / deafness but whatever the exact nature I can assure you it is terrifying and painfully isolating. Communication is solely by hand and fingers.

• Vierhanden-gebarentaal - Four Hands sign language

The “vierhanden-gebarentaal” or four-hands sign language uses the same gestures as the Sign Language. The difference is that during the gestures of the speaker loosely holds the hands of the deaf-blind person so that he can feel what the other gesturing. Most signs are thus quite clearly be felt with practice and many develop custom gestures especially where some sort of specialist terms are required.

• Vingerspellen-in-de-hand - Finger Games-in-hand

The “vingerspellen-in-de-hand” or the finger games-in-hand is directly derived from the normal hand alphabet. For someone who knows Dutch manual alphabet, the finger can also be played-in-hand. It prints the letter in the palm of the deaf-blind. The rule is that spelling is done right with the right hand of the deaf-blind. An experienced person can feel the characters faster than the seeing eye can follow, though I never developed my skills to this speed.

• Lorm-schrift - Lorm-script

“Lorm-schrift” or Lorm-script consists Lorm, forming stripes and dots in the left palm of the deafblind. The reading is very difficult for the deaf and blind, but I am told that a skilled person cab get remarkable speeds with it.

The Deaf: Driving Cognitive Development Theories

The hearing can have only a general idea what this is like. Even I, deaf (acquired) as I am can only just grasp it and I have a son who thinks in sign ! The gulf between spoken and visual language is far greater than that between, say, Dutch and English. Recent PET Scan studies of the deaf and hearing brains have shown that there is a structural difference in brain structures. What  is even more interesting is that PET Scans of people with acquired deafness who have learn’t sign show structural changes taking place as their signing skills develop and this has provided the big clue to the theory that how we think can actually rearrange the physical structure of the brain itself. This has opened up a whole new area of study into the brain and it’s physiological reaction to external stimulus.

Author: Judith

“And here I am falling,
Oh why am I falling.
Take me to where I belong.
I’m standing here falling,
Before you falling.
If it weren’t for your wings I’d be gone.”

From the moment Judith went into hospital Nicky (8) and Hilke (9) were constantly on at me not to let her have any surgery until they were there when she was woken up afterwards. I have to confess that perhaps I did not pay as much attention at first as I should, wrapped up as I was in my own worries about Judith, but the increasingly difficult behaviour of my kids eventually forced me to take notice. So while I set about trapping six of the neighbourhood cats they had set to roaming the house and cleaning the whipped cream off the kitchen floor, units, walls and ceiling I spoke with the kids while trying not to scream at them. Having spent the last eleven years living at close quarters with first one then two hearing impaired people I am a little surprised that it has given me both an insight and at the same time left me somewhat insensitive to them and their world, but sometimes the rush of life can blind any of us.

After Judith’s last experience of waking from surgery the children had later asked their mother what made it so horrid and frightening for her. They were confused as they had been told by all the adults around them that their mother would be fine, that she was in “good hands” and yet they had seen what they had seen and were therefore confused. Eventually they asked her and Judith had told them that she hated it so much because the first thing she felt as she started to wake was that she was falling, plunging down at great speed and without any control. This was not just a physical feeling, but she felt like she was falling in her heart as well. It is a legacy of the destruction wrought to her hearing and balance centres twelve years ago of course. When that hammer smashed into her skull it destroyed a great deal.

When we go through a change in the state of consciousness our sense of hearing is the last thing to go and the first thing to come back as we go and so it provides some sort of anchor to our senses but, just what do you experience when that sense is as well totally gone, and layered on top is compromised vision ?

The answer it appears is that you feel like you are falling, falling a very long way. I am rather ashamed that it took my children to highlight this and demand to be with their mother as she woke so that maybe they could in some metaphorical way catch her. I spoke with Nonke, the child psychologist of our little group and she thought that given Nicky’s extreme sensitivity to Judith’s problem following the encounter with the English tourist that it would be a good idea to do just as they were asking. So then we contacted the nurses and doctors looking after her and “wake-up day” was carefully planned for when the children could be there.

Thirty hours after the surgery she was unhooked from ICU and taken to the neurology ward where she was brought up from the induced coma with Hilke and Nicholas either side of her clinging onto a hand each. Movies and TV always get it so wrong in their portrayals of waking from a coma. The heroine, hair and make up all perfect, flutter their eyelids and gracefully wake up. It is all very clean, very lady like and utterly false. Back in the real world there were naso-gastric tubes, central-lines, breathing tubes, drains and pressure sensors springing from her partially shaved head like some StarTrek cyborg. Waking up can be anything but pretty and dignified as the person chokes, coughs or vomits, sometimes waking up only to go straight into shock. No it is definitely not as shown on TV.

We had prepared the kids carefully to focus just on their mother not on what else went on around them. Then the agent to reverse the effects of the muscle relaxants was injected into the central IV line. As she started to wake and fight the ET tube it was swiftly removed. Normally at this point the patient would be talked to, told where they are and what is happening and about to happen in order to reduce the waking distress, but of course when you are deaf you have to be left to wake into confusion, disorientation and panic. Nicky was signing onto the palm of her hand and it did appear to work to some degree. Hilke was caressing her face and neck in the same way we had caressed and tickled all our children to calm and reassure them all their lives, it made me smile inside to see it. Considering that on previous occasions I have seen Judith wake fighting and screaming and kick a doctor so hard he became a patient himself this was a peaceful waking by comparison.

Then she was there, Judith was back. She was groggy, sore and not firing on all cylinders but she was definitely back, the rest would come over the next few hours and days but I was happy and relieved that the big hurdle had been cleared.

Then it happened – my heart was pierced.

I watched as Nicky signed to his mother that he and Hilke had been there, to stop her “Falling”. I saw the look of recognition cross her drawn face as then in slow and painful movements Judith replied in sign;

“Don’t worry [precious ones]. You are MY wings, and when you have wings you cannot fall”.

My heart felt like it was bleeding as the message of this little exchange swept over me. From my eight year olds seeing what I had not, to the realisation that for all Judith’s apparent inner strength she was in fact so totally reliant on the infallible and imperfect people around her, to my total pride in the empathy shown by the children. This was the beauty of the small moment born of love that I had just witnessed. The rewards of parenting really do come from those unexpected small moments of revelation – and for me at that moment it was almost too much bear.

It was not until late that evening back at the house on the Singelgracht that I cried. I had been recounting the day’s events to Nonke, Tyjardia and my sister in law Carol when Tyjardia got up and dropped her iPod into the HiFi dock. As the music played I listened, LISTENED – a privilege that I still have. As I absorbed the words of the song I dissolved into tears as I remembered my day and seeing Judith’s wings in action, helping prevent her falling. I often try and imagine the fears that life would hold for me if I were deaf and my sight inefficient. I could manage a day, maybe two, but a week, a month, a year, ten years ? I believe I would be looking for my wings very quickly indeed as fears and terror slowly tried to squeeze the life out of my life. I could understand her fear of falling now and her words to the children.

So, my thanks to the wonderful English folk singer Kate Rusby for expressing what I am sure Judith would express if she were able to still enjoy music, as well as my thanks to my little bundles of character and contradiction commonly referred to as my children. Between you all you gave a perfect moment of happiness and pain, yin and yang.

Falling by Kate Rusby (1.9mb download)

You heard me shout hear me shout when no one’s about,
You find me where I can’t be seen.
I feel the air flowing for life’s in full swing,
So tell me why I cannot breathe.

And here I am falling,
Oh why am I falling.
Take me to where I belong.
I’m standing here falling,
Before you falling.
If it weren’t for your wings I’d be gone.

Time moves on and time won’t be long,
In time I will fear not the day.
I’m endlessly knowing that you’ll never know
What I might want you to say.

And here I am falling,
Oh why am I falling.
Take me to where I belong.
I’m standing here falling,
Before you falling.ings I’d be gone.

My back it aches, my body it breaks;
To grow my own wings I have tried.
And painless I came no aim must remain,
Alone and adrift on the tide

But here I’m still falling,
Oh why am I falling.
Take me to where I belong.
I’m standing here falling,
Before you falling.
If it weren’t for your wings I’d be gone.

And here I’m still falling,
Oh why am I falling.
Take me to where I belong.
I’m standing here falling,
Before you falling.
If it weren’t for your wings

I hope Mevrouw Rusby will excuse my providing this track (albeit in much reduced quality). I urge you my dear readers to visit her web site, purchase (as I have done) her albums and help in some small way to promote her lovely talent

Kate Rusby on Amazon:
Amazon.de
Amazon.co.uk

Author: Nina

You may have noticed that Willothewisp has been a little quiet of late, there is a reason for this. Judith has had to go back to hospital after she developed some problems with the area around one of the metal plates in her skull. She had been scheduled to go back later this year to have both the plates replaced with new ceramique ones after it was noticed that she was developing early signs of her body rejecting the original plates. A couple of weeks ago things suddenly started worsening and her vision was again in trouble so it was back into hospital with her. Given the amount of work already done inside her skull, and her reduced senses, we do not take any chances with her health, hence the swift hospitalisation. The timing was rather unfortunate with Joost so recently added to their family so we have been pooling resources to help out with the child care and as a result we have all been rather busy.

Judith was released today and is convalescing at the town house in Amsterdam. She is comfortable though she does get tired very easily. Happily it is clear that her vision is within her normal range again. Her scalp is sore where it was peeled back for the surgery but it is healing well with the help of Far Infrared Light Therapy.

A big concern for us is the impact on the children, especially Nicholas who has never quite recovered emotionally from the incident with the English tourist and seeing his mother unconscious and bleeding in the street. He finds seeing his mother hospitalised very tough going so we are investing a lot of time in him right now.

I expect things will return to normal by this time next weekend, until then we are forcing rest and inactivity on Judith while supporting Nina and the rest of the family.

Kind regards, Tyjardia vL