If you are willing to accept my disability as a unique expression of whom I amIf you are willing to turn your focus from what I can't to what I canIf you are willing to see the more in me than meets the eye,Firmer is the foundation on which I stand, and strengthened are my wings to fly.Linnaea Mallette
I joined the largest minority population (individuals with a disability) when I was just four years old. I was on the overstuffed living room sofa. My older brother was continuously pulling the blankets I kept kicking away back over me. My mom was kneeled beside me, one hand on my head, the other holding the thermometer (mercury) trying to read what my temperature was. Suddenly, I felt her hand tremble and heard the alarm in her voice, “Your sister has a fever of 106 degrees!” A few months later I was sitting with mom in our old station wagon waiting for dad to return from his visit to the hardware shop. Mom was winding her wrist watch (in those days we had to wind them,) and checked to make sure the watch was ticking. Curious, she placed the watch it beside my right ear. I could not hear anything. She placed it beside my left ear. Still, I could not hear the ticking of the watch. I'll never forget the look on my mom's face. A subsequent visit to the Children's Hospital confirmed my mother's worst fear – that 106 degrees fever had sheared nearly 2/3 of my hearing. The loss is in the high frequencies. I cannot hear the last octave of a piano. I don’t hear crickets. I don't hear birds (well, I do hear crows, parrots and cranky sea gulls); I do not hear the beeps and rings of modern day phones and alarm clocks. I respond better to fog horns and cow bells. I used to have a “sonic boom” alarm clock that would send my cats and husband fleeing the bed like speeding bullets. Because I don't hear “s”, “sh” “ch”, and “t” - I hear speech as chunks of sound. I carve meaning out of those chunks by the content of a conversation. It's sort of like when you meet someone with a very strong accent. You work hard to understand what they are saying, but once you realize they are talking to you about Disneyland, you are magically able to then understand. That is how I comprehend language.
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