In Silence: Growing Up Hearing in a Deaf World

10. When Other Children Die

10 When Other Children Die I exist as I am, that is enough. . . . —Walt Whitman, Song of Myself Death was remote and forbidden, yet it entered my life at moments when I was most open to wounding. We didn’t talk of death at home, except on rare occasions. But when it came into our lives, we saw it and then brushed it aside until the next time. My mother spoke of her firstborn child, Fanny, named for my grandmother who had died prematurely. She shook her head and said, “Nobody tell me why my baby die. Such a beautiful baby.” I was born thirteen months later. As I grew, my mother’s fear that I would die diminished but her concern for my health was always present. When I had scarlet fever, she hovered at my bedside and told me that my friend Morris Merlis had scarlet fever too. “You will get better and Morris will get better,”she assured me. Morris and I were bonded by parental deafness. He was dark and handsome, with a round face, soft brown eyes and a dark forelock that he continually pushed from his forehead with his delicate hand.  We played hide-and-seek, crouching in the neighborhood’s dusty privet hedges.My mother and his mother Rose guarded us with their eyes across the trolley tracks as they leisurely signed their afternoons away deep in animated conversation. The street drunk lurched down toward us at play, and my mother shouted, “Be careful, bad drunk man comes.” We responded instantly to the shrill voice and pretended not to hear. His mother shouted another warning and we stopped our play. For a moment our eyes touched and the silent sadness was there. We disregarded the glance immediately and Morris grabbed my hand, dragging me to the soil beneath the hedge out of the wobbling drunk’s path. Morris whispered, “Drunk is worse than deaf.” We didn’t like people who were out of control. And the sounds our mothers made were out of control to the hearing person. Their sounds disturbed us only when we were in public; at home we were comfortable with the oral utterings that imitated normal speech. We instinctively understood that our parents were in control, that it was the rest of the world that did not understand us or our parents. We grinned at each other, sharing our mighty insight, and played together. I was six and Morris was eight years old. It was . I remembered Morris as I was lying in bed recuperating from scarlet fever. I said to my mother as she sat on my bed reciting nursery rhymes for me with her hands, “I want to see Morris when I am better.” “Yes,” she promised, “you and Morris will play together.” One week later, when I was well but still weak, she laid out my favorite red dress and said, “Today you wear happy dress. Morris like red color. We go out.” When Other Children Die   Growing Up Hearing Excited, I dressed quickly and collected my sickbed presents to show Morris. Louis K. brought me a small sack of shiny colored marbles to roll around on my blanket. I wanted Morris to see them and shoot marbles with me at the curbside. I raced toward the door down the long corridor of our apartment and when I got to the kitchen my mother pulled me by the arm and scolded, “Wait! You must drink orange juice and cod liver oil before we go, make you strong.” My stomach retched at the thought of swallowing the thick spoonful of fishy oil, washed down by acid orange juice. I stepped gingerly into the kitchen and watched my mother open the brown wooden icebox, take out the vitamin D–fortified cod liver oil, pour it into a teaspoon, and push it toward my mouth. I kept my lips shut. She insisted and I opened wide, swallowed, drank the juice, asked for water and pleaded to leave without any more food. It was a short walk to Morris’s apartment. The warm sun touched the back of my neck. I was happy to be outside away from my bedroom, happy that I was going to see my friend Morris . My mother held my hand and said nothing to me. But she walked more slowly than usual. We turned the corner to Morris’s street and I...