(later called Gallaudet University). She had an air of confidence about her—she was independent and had dreams of her own; having that camper-counselor relationship with her allowed me to see beyond Naperville and Hinsdale South and realize that there was a life out there waiting for me. Even though we rarely talked specifically about being deaf, I never forgot the time we did because her words have become my mantra for raising Zoe. We were sitting by the archery court one afternoon.
“You think much about being deaf?” I asked.
“You mean how it impacts your life and stuff?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Not really,” Carla said. “I learned long ago that you need to make it your friend—you won’t get through life if you don’t.”
“Hmm . . . never thought about it that way.”
“Yeah, Brandi,” she said. “Whatever you do, you have to embrace that you are deaf, but don’t ever let it define you.”
The camp was called Mark Seven because in the Bible, Mark 7 references Jesus healing a deaf person. I remember Father Tom telling us those particular verses—verses 7:31, 34, and 35. All of the campers were sitting down by the lake with the tall trees surrounding its circumference and providing shade, where every morning he gave his daily sermons and workshops; the outdoors was our chapel.
“Jesus heals a deaf man,” he signed, his round-rimmed glasses reflecting the sunlight. “Looking up to heaven, he sighed and said, Ephphatha, which means, ‘Be opened.’ Instantly the man could hear perfectly, and his tongue was freed so he could speak plainly.” He continued, “Ephphatha means empathy—be thou open. When Jesus said it to the deaf man, it meant, ‘open your ears and you become hearing.’”
A chill went up my spine. Immediately, I understood, “Be thou open,” to mean: be open to life, to people, to ideas; be accepting. Don’t judge. Already I knew that I was more open and accepting of others than most—like a mother figure—although I was too young then to realize that it was because of having experienced my own loss, of having become deaf. By fifth grade, I was able to discern what people were really thinking, yet not judge them. Even though I hadn’t walked in their shoes, I could understand them and what they were about. I’d made fun of the kids who were riding the “baby” bus one year, and the next, I was riding it myself. Although I couldn’t articulate these thoughts back then, on some level, I grasped that people’s differences added richness and soul to life and to being human. Hearing Father Tom’s words that day helped me to understand that a little bit better.
Late one afternoon, Father Tom was talking to us down by the water, his straight, dark brown hair looking jet black, with the sun hiding behind the trees. He had a medium build and was wearing black pants and a paisley green shirt.
“How many of you are proud to be deaf?” he asked, in his kind and unassuming manner.
No one raised their hand. I remember thinking, This man is crazy.
He continued on, “It was a difficult job for God to make people because he had to give each person a completely different personality and appearance.” He thought for a second and then continued signing. “So, to make it easier for himself, he made one recipe for the human body.”
I sat there, listening intently.
“Yet, he made a different body recipe, a special one, for deaf people. God put more effort into making this unique group of people,” he said. “Being deaf is a gift from God.”
Wham. Bam. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach.
It wasn’t that I heard him say to me that being deaf is a gift from God, but that being deaf is okay—not only okay but something good, if I let it be!
Nobody had ever said that to me before. Oh, I’m sure that my parents, friends, and teachers wanted me to generally feel good about myself. But Father Tom’s words validated my very existence as a deaf person. They were a lifeline connecting me to Me, helping me to see that I wasn’t crazy for feeling different, that I felt different because, good God, I was different, and nothing that anybody could say would ever again make me believe otherwise.
My new awareness was shaky, like a foal first standing on its legs, but that afternoon a window had opened, and I saw that being deaf was the way I was meant to be. At that moment, I knew that going back to Central High for that first year had been a wasted year; I had been trying to prove to everyone that I was hearing, instead of knowing that being deaf was okay.
I realized that I had a choice: I could continue trying to be “hearing” (having hearing friends and taking hearing classes) and fail, or I could be the best deaf person I could be. It was then that I began seeing my being deaf through the eyes of self-acceptance and understanding that it didn’t mean I was failing.
After returning home from camp, I got a job at the Colonial Ice Cream Shop. I worked fountain and just loved eating the ice cream and making all those sundaes. The “Turtle” was made from two pumps of hot fudge, one pump of caramel, and pecans over vanilla ice cream. Another popular sundae, the “E.T.,” named after the movie released that summer, was made from one pump of peanut butter, two pumps of hot fudge, and Reese’s Pieces over vanilla ice cream.
It was at the Colonial that I fell for a hearing guy, and fell hard, beginning a love affair that ultimately led me to discover my deep capacity to give and to receive love. My very first day on the job, Matt came right over to me and said, “Hey gorgeous,” and I thought, Hey gorgeous, yourself.
Matt was seventeen; he was tall with dark brown, curly hair and green eyes and was as kind as he was versatile. He not only worked fountain with me but also did just about every other job in the joint—host, cook, waiter, supervisor. He was different from the crowd: steady, responsible, and loved having a good time. As soon as we began hanging around together, he learned to finger spell (signing words, letter by letter). Then, he bought The Joy of Signing, a popular book back then, and studied signing with a vengeance, picking it up quickly, which I really appreciated.
Occasionally, it was Matt’s job to lock up the shop at night after everyone had gone home. I’d hang around, so it was just the two of us there all alone at midnight. He’d whip up a couple of Monte Cristos or patty melts, and we’d sit at a booth and eat. I brought my great-grandmother’s sterling silver candlesticks from home, which we hid in the ceiling right above the booth and took down whenever we dined.
But Matt’s love notes were what I appreciated most of all; they made me fall in love with him. Every night around midnight, when I wasn’t at the restaurant with him, he’d drive by my house on the way home from work and leave me a letter in my mailbox. Some were strictly love letters; others were his thoughts about his day and other musings; we couldn’t communicate by phone, so letter writing took its place. First thing every morning, I ran to the mailbox to get his note, and then I’d write back, leaving my note in the mailbox in the afternoon for him to pick up that evening. Rather than receiving phone calls from my boyfriend, like hearing girls did, I received his amazing love letters. For once, being deaf had its privileges, and it was my secret—receiving little treasures that the hearing girls would never know . . . a whole box full of them. Matt had a way with words that went straight to the heart.
Summer turned to fall, and once school started, my life was very full. Besides spending time with Matt, my horizons expanded in the deaf circles when I played the role of Lydia in the Chicago stage production of Children of a Lesser God and became Marlee Matlin’s understudy. Lydia wasn’t the lead
