Five-Star Disability

Hey my friendly readers!

About a month ago, I was invited to my son’s school to talk about my “job,” whatever that is.

But, sadly, I had to turn it down. Why?  Well, they had a hard time finding an interpreter for 20 minutes.

I am Deaf-Blind and communicate using ASL.  If I went to the school, we’d spend more time writing things down than actually talking about my “job.”  That would lead to possible disrespect for myself, but more for my son.

In the past, I did do many school visits, but back then, at least 17 years back, my voice was more and my vision better.  Now, my voice can hover between a mouse with a bad cold trying to order a cheeseburger in a vacuum to a gorilla scrapping wrapping paper along the beach!  In other words, my vocal skills have deteriorated along with my hearing and vision!

Those school visits I did enjoy greatly!  I met some great kids, some deafblind kids, and had great memories with a dear friend who sadly is no longer with us!

I want to share (Yes, I know I am off topic here, I’ll get back on track in a sentence or two) a fond memory of one visit to a rural school where I was talking about “Being Deaf-Blind” when a girl wrote a question for me to read:

How long have you been death?

I corrected the girl, “I’ve been Deaf since 15.  I’m not dead yet, sweetie!”

Back to the point:

Parent visits to talk about their work.  Isn’t this a common practice since about 1970’s?  And yet, I could not participate!

I hope that when I need to do this again, for my younger son, I will have intervenors available to help communicate easier, and guide too!

Thanks for reading!

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