Silence

How can I love being Deaf and hate it so much. I love the peace and Silence that I get to experience every morning. Then I see the face of someone I love their mouth is moving but no sound is coming out. My mouth starts to move and I feel a rumble in my chest. Then they react to the rumble in my chest. I guess there is sound after all. If only there were also flowing hands then maybe I could understand. If only I could understand flowing hands.

I remember when I was young going swimming with friends. we would joke and laugh now I swim alone maybe there is joking and laughter still but I wouldn't know. All I know is that now I don't get to hear my name in the mornings. Now I am greeted by silence and sad looks.

Don't be mistaken it's not the silence that bothers me. it's the SILENCE that bothers me, the SILENCE of meaning, connection and love. that is what boths me. It's what slowly has been slowly chipping away at me until my sanity is gone and blown away with the wind. since the day I was old enough to understand the threat that the SILENCE has posed Deaf and Death have lost separate meaning. I don't know what it is like to live with a terminal illness knowing that you will die and leave your loved ones. But I do know what it is like to live knowing that one day I will wake up and lose connection with my loved ones. There will be a day when they see me as a shell of who they once saw. The true me will still be there but He will be in a cage with no way out. Because the only way out is to ride the flow of hands to tell them I am still there. But when the hands are still I am left alone with the SILENCE.