In Silence: Growing Up Hearing in a Deaf World

17. My Deaf Family

 17 My Deaf Family Hear attentively the noise of His voice, And the sound that goeth out of His mouth. He sendeth it forth under the whole heaven, And His lightning unto the ends of the earth. —Job :- Ilistened to the road talk, to the subway talk, to the country talk, to the city talk. I was eager to speak with my voice, with my hands. I was eager for the touch of talk. But there was a time when deaf touch revolted me. When I was eight years old, I saw Helen Keller—in reality, in fantasy, in film. I am not sure, even now, but she was real for me. I heard her flat-faced voice and was repelled. I felt her touch and moved away.A monotone voiced shut-eye. I reached for my father, put my hands up and said, “I want go home, don’t like this lady, no eyes in face, no real voice.” Sensing my fear, my father took me by the hand, saying nothing until he found my mother in the crowd of deaf assembled for this special meeting and then said, “We take Ruth home now!” His hands were absolute, speaking without hesitation. It was a time before I met Helen Gribbs in the early s. An adult now, involved in deaf-community affairs, I had heard about  Voices this Helen from the others; another blind deaf woman. I didn’t want to see her. I didn’t want to meet her. I didn’t want her hands on mine, listening to my voice. I avoided her presence, until one day a deaf classmate of my father’s, in his eighties, rushed up to me, signing,“Come, I have surprise for you!” He led me to Helen. She was standing alone. Sentinel still. My father’s friend deftly put his hand under Helen’s and signed his introduction, pulling my hand to hers so that she could touch my words. I stiffened and signed awkwardly into her hand, “I am happy to meet you.” She barely touched my fingers. And because she had once been sighted and her blindness had come upon her, shutting out the light slowly, she signed in open sign,“I am so happy to meet you.” Helen was born deaf. Relieved that the formality was over, I moved away from her and turned my back, glad to be gone. She tapped my elbow; I turned once more to face her and she signed fully across her face and chest, “Do you know Mary Bromberg?” I reached my hand quickly into hers and signed, “Yes.” Before I could finish my sentence she signed softly, “You have the same hands, the same speech, the same touch.” And I continued with my fingers in her hand, “Yes, she is my mother.” I shivered in her tactile knowledge, in the memory of her hands. She lived in darkness, she lived without sound and she lived alone. She was seventy-seven years old. And she was funny. Very funny. In some ways like Benny. We became friends and she told me of the days she and my mother went to school together. She told me of the days when My Deaf Family  she could see, told me of the fading light, of the blackness. We touched an orchid and she said, “What color?” “Purple,” I signed into her delicate hand. “What color purple?” “Dark with a white throat.” “Elegant,” she answered. We both smiled. She stroked the orchid throat. “You know I am blind and that is stinky.” “Stinky?” I asked, spelling the word into her hand. She pulled my thumb and index finger to her nose, pinching in the universal sign for a foul odor. She touched my face and we both laughed. When I come upon her now, I barely touch my fingertips to her hand and she jumps with glee. “Ruth, Ruth, it is you, right?” I throw my body weight against her tall, slim form and hold her tight. Our bodies speak their own voice. It was the Jewish New Year, September, I heard the blowing of the shofar. And the deaf congregation broke into spontaneous applause as the sound was imitated in long flowing movements of the arms and hands. And Julius, my father’s friend, Helen Gribbs’s ever present interpreter, described the call of tekiah into her hand. I saw her...