In Silence: Growing Up Hearing in a Deaf World

5. Mary

5 Mary . . . And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped . . . And the tongue of the dumb shall sing. . . . —Isaiah :- S W The silence is vast, The ocean slides to shore on a cat’s paw The silence is fear The silence strikes dumb with awe The strange silence estranged Silence saw Silence, simple, swift No refuge in sound Silence gave sight Luminous light Epiphany We shall observe in silence We shall have the second sight We shall have the second sight The penetration of that alien gift Given to the few Denied the sound of the cat mew   The World of My Parents Always outside; never inside Language denied A face to hide. In that open human sea The babble, babble, babble of talk To whom shall I talk? With whom can I walk? Where is it safe? The face opens Words on tongues, words of teeth Words, words, strung together In a field of billowy human heather The billow rises, human sounds come Who can hear them; the humans With sounded language Who can know the strangeness The shutness, the constant reaching To comprehend the blind sounded words. What is listen? Strange, estranged silence. Mary never forgot who she was. She held me to her, weaving me into her life, refusing to allow me to forget who she was, refusing to allow me to be invisible, insisting that I remember her story and her family’s story, insisting that my deaf family was not as important as my real family. She slid her pointed index finger under the center of her chin upward, in one long dramatic sweep, emphasizing the word real. “Your life, my life, same, we are one blood.You are true daughter . Must to know, my story, your story. Save for family, it is history.” When I was in college she asked, “Maybe one day you write book on me, on deaf life.” She was her own heroine, and I am her chronicler. The journal that she was not able to write was written in her hands for my eyes and hands to transfer to paper. She cheated the clock and preserved her claim to immortality, savoring the comfort of repetition , clinging to once-lived memories. There was no literary form to her words, yet they struck the chords of poetry. She was her own muse and I was her audience. Her hand stories were a demand to be known, to be recorded. It was the substance of her life, her stamp upon a world inhabited by hearing men, women, and children whose words formed chaotic sentences confusing her. Her name confused her once. She sat me down and signed, “My real name is Miriam. I was born on Purim,, in England, London, England. It is the time of year we eat sweet cakes.” I listened to her hands. Her face was marvelous: she never lost the childlike wonder of discovery. When I smiled at her, she waited for my eyes and face to give full attention to her tale. “My birthday not March . You know that. Daddy and I went to England in , alone, brave by ourselves. I want to see my birth certificate. Daddy say we never find it. But I know better. We go to Whitechapel in London to a Hall of Records. There is a clerk man and I write him a note, to tell him I want to find my name certificate. He charge us some English money which I gave to him to pick from my hand. I do not understand pounds and shillings. We went to a room with many shelves,filled with books, all with red leather covers, old and smell beautiful, like big library. I find a book, . I find my brother Nathan’s page, with my father Abraham’s signed name, and then an X for my mother’s name. I know she write Yiddish, maybe not write English, so long Mary   The World of My Parents a time ago. Then I find my name in a book, . I see my name is Miriam and I was born April , . Big surprise.” Her eyes questioned me. “Momma,” I signed,“the Jewish holidays fall on a different day each year. In , when you went to school for the first time, Purim, maybe, that year fell on March . Who knows?” “Yes,” she agreed, “I think you must be right. This school change my...