Deaf Pagan Crossroads

This is part of a Three-Part story I have written about my experiences as a Deaf child growing up in an all-hearing family, and what it was like during family holiday get-togethers.

I encourage you to read ALL THREE PARTS in order to get the full story – you will find parts One and Two in the menu on the side…simply click on Home for the Holidays (Part One) and Home for the Holidays (Part Three) to read the other “chapters” of this story.

Granted, I have pretty good lipreading skills. Granted, I have pretty comprehensible speech. Granted, my communication skills and thus my ability to interact with the hearing world is better than many of my Gallaudet classmates. But the harsh reality is this, folks…no amount of lipreading skills, no amount of speech therapy, not even the most powerful hearing aids money can buy will ever make up for the fact that Ginny is Deaf. Period. And that means there is going to be a limit somewhere to how much I can truly comprehend what’s going on around me. If I could truly understand everything that everyone is saying, one hundred percent of the time, I wouldn’t be deaf. I sometimes think that oral skills (speech and lipreading) are a cruel invention intended to fool society into thinking that if they just speak slowly and clearly, everything they say can be understood just perfectly, and if they just take a little more time, that “funny accent” can easily be ignored.

How many times have I, upon telling someone that I am Deaf, been answered with the question of “can you read lips?” I sometimes wonder if this is just intended to be a rhetorical question for which the person isn’t really seeking an answer, but just a confirmation that they don’t have anything to worry about. All of us Deafies are supposed to be really crack-shot lipreaders capable of understanding anything that comes off your mouth, right??? Yeah…right.

What people fail to understand is that there are so many variables that play into a person’s ability to lipread someone effectively. Sometimes they have to do with the person, sometimes they have to do with the situation, sometimes they have to do with the subject. There’s been times when I was able to understand an individual loud and clear with no problems, and then other times when I couldn’t understand the same individual worth beans. It had to do with what we were talking about, how tired I was, how fast or slow they were talking, what the lighting situation was, etc. etc. etc. You just can’t make assumptions about lipreading success based on one experience…each experience is going to be different, and each experience has to be evaluated on its own terms.

Besides, it is one thing to be able to read one person, in one controlled setting, where you are only having to focus on one set of lips, and try to follow one conversation. It’s an entirely different story when you’re in a group situation. Those family gatherings around the dining room table just don’t work for the majority of us. It’s like trying to watch a zanny tennis match, where there might be four different balls in play at any one time. By the time I figure out who the heck is talking and what the subject is, they’ve shut up and then I have to do the searching game all over again.

And the more people you put into that group, the harder it becomes to control the variables. Why is it that it always seems the majority of the talking will be done by the one person who is the hardest to lipread? The one who mumbles, or talks too fast, or smokes while he’s talking, or waves her hands in front of her face constantly, or always seems to have his head facing the other direction, or Goddess forbid…never puts her dentures in before launching into some lengthy tale of how things were back in the good ole days.

It’s enough to make me want to stay home, pop a frozen dinner in the microwave, and sit in front of the telly, watching the Vikings beat the crap out of the Packers (never mind that I’m not much of a football fan.)

Click on Thumbnail for Home for the Holidays (Part One)

Click on Thumbnail for Home for the Holidays ( Part Three)