The Silent Life

S

Silent Rose

Member
After glancing through several of the other diaries here, I decided to share some of my story in diary form.

I will go back to the beginning in 1972 the year I was born. It was not soon after I was born that both my mom and I got really sick with high fevers and it was determined that I had contracted Bacterial Meningitis. Due to this, I lost all hearing in both ears and also growing up had some very mild learning disabilities.

Both mom and I eventually did recover from this and we were able to go home and start our lives together. This was something that was going to be a tough undertaking for my mom because she was doing this on her own and now to top it all off raising a baby with a disability.

During those early years as a child, I remember basically one thing and that was going to see a lot of doctors and audiologists. Getting so many tests on my ears and brain and even my throat. Tested and fitted for these horrible hearing aids that did nothing for me. Then the testing for the Cochlear Implant that seemingly went on and on until the specialists said nothing could restore my hearing.

I was living in a silent world for the rest of my life.

Growing up for me was probably quite different from many other kids and teens. I rarely if ever associated with anyone in the hearing population other than my family members. I was sent to a school for the deaf which had all kids like me and those were the kids that I became friends with. The teachers if they were not deaf 99% of them were hearing impaired and the 1% that was not used ASL all the time. ASL was the way I communicated all the time. I rarely read lips and that was mostly just with my mom and teachers.

Once I attended college which was also a university that mostly catered to the deaf and hearing impaired(Gallaudet University) they encouraged the students to get out into the Washington D.C. community. This is when I started interacting with the hearing population much more frequently. My views of things just exploded and at first I thought there was no way I would be able to survive in this world.

I thankfully did survive and came out of Gallaudet University with an accounting degree and started doing some small bookkeeping jobs before I landed my current job I have in bookkeeping for the City of Baltimore. Also during this time is when I met this man who I ended up getting pregnant by. The guy and I didn't work out as he really was not invested in the relationship with me and opted to not be involved with my daughter but he has not missed a child support payment in her almost 17 years of life even though he has never laid eyes on her at all.

As I stated my daughter will be turning 17 on April 25th. She has grown into a beautiful young lady and when I say grown she is now taller than me and I am not short.

Shortly after my daughter was born and I was heading into my mid 30's, I decided I really needed a life change. Growing up my mom raised me in the church and I did everything in my power to try to avoid that. I am not saying I was a horrible kid and young adult, but I could be a handful at times. Once I had my daughter which is quite the life changing event in itself, I was like I really need some guidance. So I began reading some passages in the Bible and this brought me back into a lot of prayer and finally accepting Jesus back into my life. This has to be the best decision I have ever made in my entire life.

I have raised my daughter to follow the Lord and she has grown into a Beautiful Child of God and I am so proud of her.

I still have a long way to go in my life God willing and many things are still ahead for me. I hope I can use this diary to share some of those things along the way.

God Bless, Molly
 

Thanks Molly, that is a great story, glad you told it.
Silent Rose said:
opted to not be involved with my daughter but he has not missed a child support payment in her almost 17 years of life even though he has never laid eyes on her at all.
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That is really hard to imagine. Particularly if he is responsible enough to keep up the payments. I guess it takes all kinds, hopefully not to many of his kind...
Silent Rose said:
As I stated my daughter will be turning 17 on April 25th. She has grown into a beautiful young lady and when I say grown she is now taller than me and I am not short.
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Sounds like a great kid! I suspect you are a great mama.
 

My mother was deaf, and attended a deaf school. She couldn't have written such a great post as you, however in her favor they didn't teach deaf kids as well then. I was fluent in ASL when she left my father and I when I was 5. My grandma years later said she was sorry that she let me lose sign language. I didn't blame her, we used busses since grandpa could no longer drive. She said often we would encounter deaf friends of my mother and she wouldn't understand what was being said to her 5 year old granddaughter. I understood completely. There were 2 things I remembered , ice cream and chewing gum. LOL
 
Alligatorob said:
Thanks Molly, that is a great story, glad you told it.

That is really hard to imagine. Particularly if he is responsible enough to keep up the payments. I guess it takes all kinds, hopefully not to many of his kind...

Sounds like a great kid! I suspect you are a great mama.
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I will just say this about my daughters dad. He did not want that life with a child and honestly his career at the time and what he is still actually is involved with in a different capacity wouldn't allow him to be a great dad to her anyway. He really made his choice back then and yes he was capable financially and I am glad he honored that throughout her life. He has also told me he will also pay for he college as well anonymously if she doesn't get scholarships.
mrstime said:
My mother was deaf, and attended a deaf school. She couldn't have written such a great post as you, however in her favor they didn't teach deaf kids as well then. I was fluent in ASL when she left my father and I when I was 5. My grandma years later said she was sorry that she let me lose sign language. I didn't blame her, we used busses since grandpa could no longer drive. She said often we would encounter deaf friends of my mother and she wouldn't understand what was being said to her 5 year old granddaughter. I understood completely. There were 2 things I remembered , ice cream and chewing gum. LOL
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I feel my school and definitely my University taught me well with writing. ASL is my main way of communicating. I do have my daughter to help with interpreting for me when need be , but I am able to read lips when things are 1 on 1. My main issue is my verbal skills which have improved over time, but still would be very frustrating for the hearing person to have to listen to me speak. My daughter has no issues or my mother has no issues with the speaking voice, but most others find difficulty understanding.
 
Silent Rose said:
I will just say this about my daughters dad. He did not want that life with a child and honestly his career at the time and what he is still actually is involved with in a different capacity wouldn't allow him to be a great dad to her anyway. He really made his choice back then and yes he was capable financially and I am glad he honored that throughout her life. He has also told me he will also pay for he college as well anonymously if she doesn't get scholarships.


I feel my school and definitely my University taught me well with writing. ASL is my main way of communicating. I do have my daughter to help with interpreting for me when need be , but I am able to read lips when things are 1 on 1. My main issue is my verbal skills which have improved over time, but still would be very frustrating for the hearing person to have to listen to me speak. My daughter has no issues or my mother has no issues with the speaking voice, but most others find difficulty understanding.
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Keep in mind I am 82, my mother was in school a very long time ago.
 
mrstime said:
Keep in mind I am 82, my mother was in school a very long time ago.
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I understand, I graduated from high school in 1990 and 4 years later from college.

Not saying you are old because 82 years of age and the intelligence from the way you post your mind must be as sharp as a tack. You are actually several years older than my mom who doesn't use the internet very much because it confuses her too much.
 
Silent Rose said:
I will just say this about my daughters dad. He did not want that life with a child and honestly his career at the time and what he is still actually is involved with in a different capacity wouldn't allow him to be a great dad to her anyway. He really made his choice back then and yes he was capable financially and I am glad he honored that throughout her life. He has also told me he will also pay for he college as well anonymously if she doesn't get scholarships.


I feel my school and definitely my University taught me well with writing. ASL is my main way of communicating. I do have my daughter to help with interpreting for me when need be , but I am able to read lips when things are 1 on 1. My main issue is my verbal skills which have improved over time, but still would be very frustrating for the hearing person to have to listen to me speak. My daughter has no issues or my mother has no issues with the speaking voice, but most others find difficulty understanding.
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..as you already know, I grew up in a profoundly deaf family who were non verbal.. except for one aunt. ( my paternal uncles' wife ) she would talk whenever she felt comfortable, and of course as you say it's often difficult for outsiders to understand a deaf persons verbal skills , so many hard of hearing don't attempt it outside of their own homes.. but my auntie Sylvia was confident and she would try and talk wherever she was, mostly people didn't understand, but she had a great sense of humour and she'd laugh it off, she also read lips fluently .. , she was only young then, in her early 30's.. whereas my uncle to whom she was married had no verbal skills at all.. and never attempted to speak..always signed. ..

My uncle is the only one still alive of all my deaf relatives, and in his 80's now.. lives a long way from me, so I haven't seen him in years.. the only communication we have is the very occasional letter which he might send every few years.. he keeps himself completely enveloped in the deaf community.
 
hollydolly said:
..as you already know, I grew up in a profoundly deaf family who were non verbal.. except for one aunt. ( my paternal uncles' wife ) she would talk whenever she felt comfortable, and of course as you say it's often difficult for outsiders to understand a deaf persons verbal skills , so many hard of hearing don't attempt it outside of their own homes.. but my auntie Sylvia was confident and she would try and talk wherever she was, mostly people didn't understand, but she had a great sense of humour and she'd laugh it off, she also read lips fluently .. , she was only young then, in her early 30's.. whereas my uncle to whom she was married and had no verbal skills at all.. and never attempted to speak..always signed. ..

My uncle is the only one still alive of all my deaf relatives, and in his 80's now.. lives a long way from me, so I haven't seen him in years.. the only communication we have is the very occasional letter which he might send every few years.. he keeps himself completely enveloped in the deaf community.
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My confidence grew a lot once I went off to college, but still I tend to sign when I can since that is I suppose my comfort zone. When I do go into the work place I do speak some and usually have to go really slowly and stick to conversations that are only with one person at a time or I get easily confused. I can read lips, but when more than one person is speaking and if they are moving about it is impossible for me to get what is going on. I was in a Zoom meeting with 5 others from work and if you ever have used that their conversation can flip from one person to the next very quickly on the screen. I quickly had to stop the meeting and tell everything this format was not going to work for me. Thankfully they understood and I received updates of the meetings from my boss instead. With my job I mostly work independently so that works for me.

In settings like restaurants I just speak slowly and sometimes have to repeat myself, but I eventually get my point across.
 
Silent Rose said:
I understand, I graduated from high school in 1990 and 4 years later from college.

Not saying you are old because 82 years of age and the intelligence from the way you post your mind must be as sharp as a tack. You are actually several years older than my mom who doesn't use the internet very much because it confuses her too much.
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I find some things about computers that boggle my mind, fight with from time to time. Between DH and I we get it figured out. But thanks for the compliment.
 
Silent Rose said:
My teen daughter usually helps me out when I get into a bind with computer things and I just turned 50.
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Unfortunately our son just turned 60, he hasn't had his computer as long as we have. Then we have a dear friend who we call our computer guru. Once in a while the computer boggles her mind but not as often as it does us an she doesn't charge for her help. If she can't fix it there is a fellow around the corner from us who is a computer fixer.
 
mrstime said:
Unfortunately our son just turned 60, he hasn't had his computer as long as we have. Then we have a dear friend who we call our computer guru. Once in a while the computer boggles her mind but not as often as it does us an she doesn't charge for her help. If she can't fix it there is a fellow around the corner from us who is a computer fixer.
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It is good to have someone who is really knowledgeable about computers.
 
jerry old said:
If I had to lose one of my senses, I would hope it would be deafness.
Obviously, that is a blowing smoke statement, i know nothing about being deaf.

Courage SL
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I do feel many would say the same as you, especially when it comes to blindness. As for losing the sense of touch and taste or smell those would be tough as well.

It is true though that when you lose one sense that one of the other senses becomes stronger and for me that is the sense of smell. I can be blindfolded and have many different types of smells put under my nose and many very obscure and I can usually guess them.
 
Molly, thank you so much for sharing. I think many of us use this site as a means to tell our stories and to be understood based on our life experiences. I used to think I was "oversharing" but now I just realize it is cathartic for all of us and hopefully someone will take away inspiration from our stories. I certainly did from yours.

I'm so happy you have overcome the obstacles that were presented in life and have raised what seems to be a wonderful daughter. I have tremendous respect for single mothers, and even more so for you.
 
dseag2 said:
Molly, thank you so much for sharing. I think many of us use this site as a means to tell our stories and to be understood based on our life experiences. I used to think I was "oversharing" but now I just realize it is cathartic for all of us and hopefully someone will take away inspiration from our stories. I certainly did from yours.

I'm so happy you have overcome the obstacles that were presented in life and have raised what seems to be a wonderful daughter. I have tremendous respect for single mothers, and even more so for you.
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Thanks so much. I have a great mother who has been a great inspiration to me all my life and even though I took some other forks in the road that maybe she would not have approved of while growing up, I think that is all in the learning process. I did however take much away from what she taught me and I do hope my daughter does the same with me.

The funny thing is my mom thinks it to be so funny the way my daughter is right now as she is approaching the age of 17. I many ways she is a wonderful kid, but in many ways she is a challenging kid just like I was at that age and my mom thinks that is the most wonderful thing in the world. :)
 
Molly,, thank you for sharing about your life.

My husband had had a hearing problem every since I've known him.
Not sure if it was from an injury or something he was born with.

From age 12 to this day he has been around loud sounds,, chain saw, steel mills.
He went through several tests on his hearing only to be told nothing could be done,, but wear hearing aids.

He tried one hearing aid, which now lives in a drawer,, same with a newer model.

I think while my father was living with us & finding the tiny hearing aid batteries every where, discouraged him.
 
Sliverfox said:
Molly,, thank you for sharing about your life.

My husband had had a hearing problem every since I've known him.
Not sure if it was from an injury or something he was born with.

From age 12 to this day he has been around loud sounds,, chain saw, steel mills.
He went through several tests on his hearing only to be told nothing could be done,, but wear hearing aids.

He tried one hearing aid, which now lives in a drawer,, same with a newer model.

I think while my father was living with us & finding the tiny hearing aid batteries every where, discouraged him.
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Thanks

Hearing difficulties can stem from many different things including exposure to loud noises over time. They have special noise reduction ear plugs now for those sort of things that work pretty well. Injuries can also do damage to the inner ear that can cause hearing problems.

Hearing Aids and evening the newer models that are tiny and they say you can even feel them or no one can see them. Well no one being able to see them might be the case, but feeling them is not the case. Like with anything Hearing Aids are something you have to adjust to over time. The only thing I can say about hearing loss is it never gets better it only continues to deteriorate with time so the Hearing Aids do help.
 
Pepper said:
Why? Is wearing a hearing aid not manly?
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I honestly do not know the answer to this.

I mean back in the day, I think with those larger Hearing Aids people did not think they were attractive but now they are so small most cannot even see them unless they are staring right into someones ear.
 
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