or from my connection with God and knowing that I’d be taken care of. One way or another, I’ve just always been that way. We went to an Episcopal church at the time (later, after my parents divorced, we switched to a Lutheran one), but it was my own individual connection to God that nurtured me and allowed me to become strong. Somehow, I always wanted to be better than average and to do something first class with my life. Becoming deaf might have traumatized another child, but not me; I think that it has made me a better person. It has forced me to raise the bar in everything I do and has helped me to become more self-aware, giving me the opportunity to go beyond my comfort level, be less prejudiced, and relate well to people who are “different.”
Facing such a huge loss at a young age forced me to see how people treat one another and what it’s like to grow up in America as part of a minority. The experience also gave me a different perspective on living with the majority—being deaf in a hearing world. My world was silent. I was cut off from communicating and had to learn to survive through that.
The world operates through spoken language. I had to think ahead, be more aware, be more alert, and take on challenges I might not otherwise have taken on. Today, I can’t listen to the radio as I drive to work in the morning; hear announcements over a PA system; or, if it isn’t captioned, watch TV. Often, because of communication barriers, I have to work twice as hard as a hearing person. Instead of it taking me five minutes to make a doctor’s appointment, it takes me ten.
At home, I use a videophone to make phone calls. When I am talking with a deaf person, I see them signing to me on a screen. It’s sort of like Skyping; we just sign back and forth to each other. To connect with people who don’t have a videophone, I use something called Video Relay Service. So when making a doctor’s appointment, for example, I sign to a video relay interpreter I see on my screen, who then interprets what I said for the nurse on a telephone.
It takes extra time. First, I have to make sure that the interpreter is voicing for me correctly so that the nurse is getting the correct information, which I do by reading their lips. Then, I have to request that an interpreter is present at the appointment, and if the nurse isn’t familiar with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), I have to educate her that this is my right. It’s like that for deaf people in the mainstream. By now, of course, living that way has become second nature. I don’t even think about it.
Back then, I started compensating without thinking much about it either. It was funny. When I first became deaf, people started treating me differently, although I still felt like I was just like everyone else. But as time passed, the reverse happened. My family and friends in the neighborhood told me that despite my being deaf, I functioned just fine, that it seemed as though I were hearing, and that I was bright and could make it in the hearing world. They said that I didn’t need to be with deaf people at all. Yet, even though I inherently knew that what they were saying was wrong, that being deaf did make me different, even with all my confidence—I tried so hard to convince myself that what they were saying was true. I really took what they said to heart.
While I had some deaf friends at school, at home, I usually socialized with the hearing kids in my neighborhood and was the only deaf kid in the whole group. One of my best friends was a girl named Chris D’Alessandro, who lived down the block from me. Even though Chris was a year older than I was and was a grade ahead of me in school, we hung out after school and on the weekends. She quickly learned how to sign and became my advocate and champion. Chris made sure that I was included in all the conversations with our gang, and she called my mother on the phone to coordinate our plans for me. I was more grateful to her than I could say.
When I entered junior high, even though I was mainstreamed in a public school that had a deaf program, I chose not to participate in the deaf classes most of the time. I took regular classes and had a sign-language interpreter with me throughout the day.
I thought I was too smart for the deaf classes.
I didn’t know that deaf kids who are only exposed to sign language and don’t use any speech whatsoever—like the kids in the class next door to me in elementary school—often read below grade level because their English isn’t honed. Mistakenly, I associated reading below grade level as being less intelligent. Most of those kids didn’t speak either, which I also mistook as a sign of being less smart. I sure was wrong.
In eighth grade, the pull to prove to myself and everyone else that I could “stay hearing” was stronger than ever. I left the deaf program altogether and transferred to my neighborhood junior high school, which was right up the street and where all of my hearing friends went. I didn’t want to be in a “special” school anymore. I wanted to walk to school with my friends and be a part of it all. I was the only deaf student in the entire school, and they gave me a full-time interpreter named Joyce Zimmerman. Joyce sat near my desk in every class and interpreted for me. She was awesome because she blended in, giving me space when I needed it, but was always there when I needed her. She would meet me at each class but did not follow me there. She let me be independent and did not come to recess or lunch.
That year, I became president of the student council. When I first ran for office, I read my speech over the intercom and then had a friend reread it to be sure that everyone understood. Once elected, I used my voice to run meetings and do other things; Joyce would sign to me what people said. In ninth grade, I remained local as well, attending Naperville Central High School with my neighborhood friends and, again, was the only deaf student in the school.
That was the year when things really began changing for me.
Central High had so many more students and teachers than my previous schools, none of whom knew me or my family. Despite having my friends there, who were as welcoming as usual, and Joyce, who interpreted for me all throughout high school, I began feeling very isolated. My self-inflicted pressure to stay hearing still remained in full force and began taking its toll on me. Chris still had very high expectations of me, and because she was older than me, I looked up to her. She really believed I could be successful in the mainstream and continued to support my success. I would hear her voice in my head saying, “You’re not different; you can do it!” I didn’t want to let her down or let myself down. I was proud of myself for being able to manage in that hearing world and in a hearing high school, and that pride felt good.
It was the era of Flashdance, and, believe me, I knew what was “in” with those hearing girls. Chris made sure of that. We went to see Rocky when it first came out, and she taught me the popular song from the movie, “The Eye of the Tiger.” She would tap the beat on my leg, and I mouthed the words. In the same way, my hearing friends taught me all the popular songs of the time: “Last Dance,” “Hard to Say I’m Sorry,” “Time for Me to Fly.” I so appreciated them for teaching me those songs because it made me feel like I was part of the group.
But life was a mixed bag. I was missing things. At the Lutheran Church, I didn’t have an interpreter, so during my confirmation classes, I had no idea what was going on when they read from the Bible. I just sat there, wondering what was happening in the silence. Later on, my interpreter from school, Joyce, joined my church, so I got lucky.
Once during summer vacation, I went to the movies with my twin cousins, Heather and Heidi. They were identical twins, beautiful girls with dark brown hair. They were my age, and we had grown up together. To them, I was just Brandi, their cousin, not Brandi, the deaf girl. I had gone to the movies a few times with my father—who was an avid James Bond fan. The movies were heavy-duty action and easy to follow, so I was looking forward to going with my cousins. Heather and Heidi were the most fun people for me to hang around with—always daring and getting into trouble. We fed each other popcorn and had sodas. We had gone to see the Chevy Chase movie National Lampoon’s Vacation (which wasn’t closed-captioned, of course).
Perhaps it was because of the amount of dialogue, but I didn’t understand
