The last six years of my mom’s life were spent in a nursing home. We would visit her as often as we could – and I remember the day we walked into her room, and she said “Why did you never tell me that I had a voice!”
When I asked her what she meant, she told me that when she was recently having her nails trimmed, the podiatrist sneezed – and my mother said, “Bless You”. And the podiatrist looked up and said, “Thank you.”
And it was at that moment when something in my mother’s awareness must have clicked – possibly an unconscious, very early memory, before she lost her hearing at the age of three. She must have suddenly realized that her voice could be heard and understood – at least by the podiatrist.
All of the deaf people that I have known - friends of my parents, sign language interpreting clients, deaf co-workers - always had a “voice” – and the voice varied in it’s sounds to non-deaf ears – varied in pitch, tempo and volume. And the voice would also vary depending on whether the person was born deaf and never heard their own voice – like my dad – or lost their hearing at an early age – like my mom.
Most hearing people would have a hard time understanding the deaf voices they heard – it could sound almost guttural. And then there were those deaf people that I met that lost their hearing when they were much older – from teenagers to adults – and their voices would be much easier for most hearing folks to understand. But they used sign language to be communicated to.
This moment of my mom’s realization that she had a voice reverberates through me - thinking about all the many people throughout time who have felt like they were never heard - they never had a chance to offer their insights and experiences - and especially in these current, chaotic and turbulent times, when so many people have a voice - and for whatever reason choose not to speak. If the deaf have a voice, then we all do - and we all need to speak and be heard.
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