"I’ve always wanted to write a book relating my experiences growing up as a deaf child in Chicago. Contrary to what people might think, it wasn’t all about hearing aids and speech classes or frustrations."
– Marlee Matlin
This is an exceptionally late post because, well, it was kind of personal and I wasn't so sure I really wanted to post it. My brother is deaf. Or 'profoundly deaf,' as the doctor told my parents umpteen years ago. It's not obvious when you look at him. That should go without saying, and yet it doesn't. I say it not to be daft on purpose, but because it's the first thing out of people's mouths when they realise. As if you can wear your deafness as blatantly as a roadside worker in a high-vis vest. The next thing people do is start shouting and over enunciating, at which point my brother gets incredibly frustrated and says, "I'm deaf. Not stupid," in a speaking voice as clear as mine. And that confuses people more, as if deaf people should be immediately identifiable by their speech pattern. Maybe sometimes people are, and maybe sometimes people aren't. His journey, his life experience of being deaf, has been an emotional roller coaster for all of us; both incredibly hard and joyous to see. Of all the things I've blogged about, both personally and work wise, this will be the hardest. I've only ever blogged about him once, and never again until now. I was never sure that I would be able to strike the right tone. I was never sure that I would find the right words that wouldn't see him turned him into a curiosity, instead. More than anything, I didn't want to inadvertently belittle or trivialise his life. It was always far too personal a post to write. It's not that I don't care, it's that I care too much. So what changed? Nothing huge. Just a chance conversation with my brother about what he would have like to have seen more of as a young child and he said, "Picture books with kids like me. Where was I? Where were kids like me?" I'm happy to say that now, some thirty years later, there are more than a few, some of which I deliberately hunted out for this post. This is for my brother :)
