On Sunday, November 22, the Washington Post newspaper published an article, "A Place at the Table" that really hit home for me, and undoubtedly for other deaf and hard of hearing readers. In this article, Wendy Lichtman described the difficulties her deaf daughter (who, incidentially, uses sign language) has at family holiday gatherings.
Lichtman's article brought back the memories of my own experience at family holiday gatherings. While I enjoyed getting presents, I dreaded the events. I was the oldest child, and could not understand the younger cousins. Nor could I understand the adults well. At that time, my ability to read and write exceeded my ability to speak and lipread.
I would usually go off by myself to read the children's books and any other books I could find in the apartment. While the cousins ran around, playing and making "cookies" out of clay, they would pretty much ignore me and I felt very left out.
I would try to interact with the adults, with my parents attempting to oral interpret for me with varying degrees of success. These attempts at one-on-one communication often ended in frustration with me returning to my books. I don't remember if we tried to write back and forth or not.
Sometimes I would get so frustrated or upset about being left out that I would cry. One time an aunt found me alone in a room, crying. She asked what was the matter but I did not answer her.
This is a common problem that has been discussed in the deaf community - the problems that deaf people have at family gatherings where everyone else is hearing. It may have been "family time," but for me it was more often "solo time." Lichtman really hit the nail on the head when she wrote, "she misses the ability to have a conversation of depth." I never had such a conversation with my grandparents.
