Didn't You Hear Me Knocking?
The lights flashed and the faint sound of a vibration could not be heard by Addison, but she felt it. She opened her eyes and let out a sigh. The sun shined through her window and warmed her skin. She laid there and watched a blue bird perched on the old oak tree outside of her bedroom window. The bird was chirping back and forth with it’s friends. She wondered if today was the day that she’d make some friends of her own. More importantly, she wondered what birds sounded like.
Just then, the bedroom door flung open as her mom frantically ran through the door.
WRONG? SCREAM, WHY?
Addison felt embarrassed. While watching the birds, she must have been trying to mimic their behaviors and let out a few notes of her own. She didn’t mean to, she couldn’t hear herself.
SORRY. ME FINE ME.
OK. SOON SCHOOL, READY?
10-MINUTE.
Addison’s mom left the room and went downstairs to make lunches and leave her daughter to get ready for her first day at a hearing school. Since Addison’s father left her and her mother, they could no longer afford to send Addison to a Deaf school. The nearest Deaf school was 60 miles away. Room and board was too much for a single mother to keep up with. Sun Valley Township had a meeting with Addison’s mother two months ago explaining that they would pay to have an interpreter follow her around throughout the school day. She would remain in regular education classrooms with her interpreter.
Addison got out of bed with only five minutes to spare. She put in her hearing aids, ripped the tags off of her new red shirt, and got ready for her first day. She made her way downstairs into the kitchen where her mom was putting away the last of the dishes.
BREAKFAST, WANT?
NO. NERVOUS, ME THINK ME.
STOP. NERVOUS, NO. BEAUTIFUL GIRL, NEW SCHOOL. PERFECT.
ME FEEL ME WEIRD GIRL. SPEAK, HOW? WITH HANDS.
YOU FINE YOU. TRUST ME. I-LOVE-YOU
I-LOVE-YOU SAME.
Addison glanced at the clock. It was 7:15AM and the bus comes at 7:20. She grabbed her lunch, kissed her mom on the cheek, and ran out to the bus stop. When she got to the end of her street two girls and one boy were standing there waiting for the bus. She began to walk slowly towards the corner. One of the girls looked back and Addison quickly made eye contact with the sidewalk. She was afraid of the kids trying to talk to her and having to explain why she couldn’t talk back. So instead, she watched the sidewalk and waited for the bus to arrive.
“Do you go to Sun Valley Junior high?” one girl asked. But Addison didn’t speak. “Hello?? Are you Deaf or something?” Addison looked up and saw the puzzled and annoyed look on the girls’ faces.
“I guess ----------. ----- rude!”
She tried to read her lips, but that was the extent of what she could comprehend. Her deafness stemmed from the diagnosis of meningitis at the age of four. She understood what most words looked like on people’s lips, but never really got the lip reading down perfect. Ever since she became Deaf, her mother always spoke to her in sign. At the Deaf school, all of her teachers and friends signed so there was no real need for her to learn how to read lips. The bus arrived and the knots in her stomach began to tighten. She walked on the bus and sat in the second seat from the front, alone.
Addison’s interpreter, Cammie, greeted her when she stepped off of the bus at Sun Valley Junior High.
HELLO. MY NAME C-A-M-M-I-E ME. A-D-D-I-S-O-N, TRUE?
YES. NICE MEET YOU.
SAME! BUS-DRIVE, GOOD?
YES. SCHEDULE. FIRST, HAVE WHAT?
FIRST, ENGLISH. SECOND, HISTORY. THIRD, SCIENCE. FOURTH, LUNCH. FIFTH, GYM. SIX, MATH. SEVENTH, STUDY ROOM.
O-K. WHERE? YOU KNOW?
YES. FOLLOW.
Addison followed Cammie into the red brick building with the big glass windows. There was no need for light bulbs in Sun Valley Junior High, that’s for sure. She followed the interpreter down two hallways and up one flight of stairs. She stopped at room 201.
ME GO MEET TEACHER ME. YOU SIT FRONT RIGHT, O-K?
O-K.
Cammie walked over to the English teacher and introduced herself and pointed to Addison, so she waved. Unlike American Culture, in Deaf Culture it is not considered rude to point at someone. It is how the Deaf get another’s attention or to make sure that they are talking about the correct person in the room. Cammie walked over to Addison.
READY? TEACHER, NICE.
GOOD. THANK-YOU.
The English teacher, Mrs. Smith, began her lesson at 7:45. Addison knew this because she began to write on the black board in the front of the room. Mrs. Smith. Addison’s eyes were glued to Cammie’s hands so that she was sure she wouldn’t miss any information. The other kids in the class seemed to be interested in Cammie’s hands as well.
“Class, please stop ------ Cammie ------ attention ----- I am saying. Addison ----deaf --------.”
Addison’s face turned bright red. She picked up the most important words in Mrs. Smith’s speech to know that her classmates now knew that she was different from them. Different. Weird. Just like she had told her mom before school. The teacher picked back up where she left off, but now Addison couldn’t help but look at Mrs. Smith’s lips to make sure she didn’t reveal anything else to the class she didn’t want out. What was next? Addison doesn’t have a father?
Mrs. Smith’s body language began to give off an uneasy impression. She was annoyed by the children being more interested in Cammie’s body movements rather than the words that were coming out of her mouth. She signaled Cammie over to her desk. When she came back to her seat, she told Addison that they had to sit in the back so that the children wouldn’t be so distracted. Great, Addison thought, a WEIRD distraction.
After they moved, Mrs. Smith seemed to become more anxious when she was speaking. Almost as if she was distracted by the interpreting. At the end of class, as the students were leaving, Mrs. Smith approached Cammie once more.
“Um ----- maybe a different class? --------- deal with the distraction. --------- I’m sorry. ----------- ask Principal Carter ----- reassign her.”
Addison put her head down, ashamed. Cammie’s arms went flying into the air and her face turned red as Addison’s new shirt.
“Reassign her?? What the hell gives YOU the right to try to do that? You’re a teacher! You should be able to deal with multiple distractions, not that being Deaf is even one of them!”
“I’m sorry. It’s just how I feel.”
Addison was afraid to even look up. She immediately flashed back to the day her father left. Her mother and father were arguing about her deafness. Her father felt that getting the cochlear implant was the best option for Addison. He said it could cure her of her disease.
“Disease?!? You think being Deaf is a disease?! It’s been 8 years, Bob, our daughter is Deaf and proud!”
“Proud of what? Why are we proud that our daughter can’t hear!? We can fix her!”
“Fuck you, Bob! Fix her?!? She’s not broken!!!”
So, he left. He wrote Addison a letter and slipped it under her door in the middle of the night. With the note, he attached a pamphlet about cochlear implants. Addison had a friend Jimmy who got the implant when he was nine. Jimmy said the implant helped him hear some sounds, but it always sounded fuzzy and magnetic. He wished he could wear his hearing aids instead.
Two o’clock came and the buses were lined up at the front of the building. Cammie told Addison that she was going to have a meeting with the principal after school and not to worry about Mrs. Smith. How could she not? Addison made her way down a flight of stairs and two hallways. As she was walking outside, she passed Mrs. Smith. They both put their heads down as if from two spectrums of embarrassment. Addison walked quietly to her bus and sat down in the second seat from the front. Mrs. Smith walked through the parking lot to her car and started on her way home.
Addison walked through her front door and went straight to her bedroom with bloodshot eyes. She was alone. Her mother usually got home around five o’clock. She got undressed, took off her hearing aids, and started a shower. She was hoping to wash off the embarrassment of today before her mother got home.
Mrs. Smith arrived at home looking defeated. She walked up her stone driveway to her front door. It was locked. She looked back and saw that her daughter’s car was home and began to bang on the front door. After a minute or two, she pulled out her keys and unlocked the door herself.
“Hello?? Didn’t you hear me knocking?!” she yelled from the foyer.
There was no response. She walked into the kitchen to find her daughter sitting at the table, facing the bay window, eating a sandwich.
“Daphne!”
Still no response. Mrs. Smith walked over angrily and slapped her hands on the table trying to get her daughters attention. Daphne reached behind her right ear.
Click.
“Sorry Mom, my implant wasn’t in. How was school?”
Just then, the bedroom door flung open as her mom frantically ran through the door.
WRONG? SCREAM, WHY?
Addison felt embarrassed. While watching the birds, she must have been trying to mimic their behaviors and let out a few notes of her own. She didn’t mean to, she couldn’t hear herself.
SORRY. ME FINE ME.
OK. SOON SCHOOL, READY?
10-MINUTE.
Addison’s mom left the room and went downstairs to make lunches and leave her daughter to get ready for her first day at a hearing school. Since Addison’s father left her and her mother, they could no longer afford to send Addison to a Deaf school. The nearest Deaf school was 60 miles away. Room and board was too much for a single mother to keep up with. Sun Valley Township had a meeting with Addison’s mother two months ago explaining that they would pay to have an interpreter follow her around throughout the school day. She would remain in regular education classrooms with her interpreter.
Addison got out of bed with only five minutes to spare. She put in her hearing aids, ripped the tags off of her new red shirt, and got ready for her first day. She made her way downstairs into the kitchen where her mom was putting away the last of the dishes.
BREAKFAST, WANT?
NO. NERVOUS, ME THINK ME.
STOP. NERVOUS, NO. BEAUTIFUL GIRL, NEW SCHOOL. PERFECT.
ME FEEL ME WEIRD GIRL. SPEAK, HOW? WITH HANDS.
YOU FINE YOU. TRUST ME. I-LOVE-YOU
I-LOVE-YOU SAME.
Addison glanced at the clock. It was 7:15AM and the bus comes at 7:20. She grabbed her lunch, kissed her mom on the cheek, and ran out to the bus stop. When she got to the end of her street two girls and one boy were standing there waiting for the bus. She began to walk slowly towards the corner. One of the girls looked back and Addison quickly made eye contact with the sidewalk. She was afraid of the kids trying to talk to her and having to explain why she couldn’t talk back. So instead, she watched the sidewalk and waited for the bus to arrive.
“Do you go to Sun Valley Junior high?” one girl asked. But Addison didn’t speak. “Hello?? Are you Deaf or something?” Addison looked up and saw the puzzled and annoyed look on the girls’ faces.
“I guess ----------. ----- rude!”
She tried to read her lips, but that was the extent of what she could comprehend. Her deafness stemmed from the diagnosis of meningitis at the age of four. She understood what most words looked like on people’s lips, but never really got the lip reading down perfect. Ever since she became Deaf, her mother always spoke to her in sign. At the Deaf school, all of her teachers and friends signed so there was no real need for her to learn how to read lips. The bus arrived and the knots in her stomach began to tighten. She walked on the bus and sat in the second seat from the front, alone.
Addison’s interpreter, Cammie, greeted her when she stepped off of the bus at Sun Valley Junior High.
HELLO. MY NAME C-A-M-M-I-E ME. A-D-D-I-S-O-N, TRUE?
YES. NICE MEET YOU.
SAME! BUS-DRIVE, GOOD?
YES. SCHEDULE. FIRST, HAVE WHAT?
FIRST, ENGLISH. SECOND, HISTORY. THIRD, SCIENCE. FOURTH, LUNCH. FIFTH, GYM. SIX, MATH. SEVENTH, STUDY ROOM.
O-K. WHERE? YOU KNOW?
YES. FOLLOW.
Addison followed Cammie into the red brick building with the big glass windows. There was no need for light bulbs in Sun Valley Junior High, that’s for sure. She followed the interpreter down two hallways and up one flight of stairs. She stopped at room 201.
ME GO MEET TEACHER ME. YOU SIT FRONT RIGHT, O-K?
O-K.
Cammie walked over to the English teacher and introduced herself and pointed to Addison, so she waved. Unlike American Culture, in Deaf Culture it is not considered rude to point at someone. It is how the Deaf get another’s attention or to make sure that they are talking about the correct person in the room. Cammie walked over to Addison.
READY? TEACHER, NICE.
GOOD. THANK-YOU.
The English teacher, Mrs. Smith, began her lesson at 7:45. Addison knew this because she began to write on the black board in the front of the room. Mrs. Smith. Addison’s eyes were glued to Cammie’s hands so that she was sure she wouldn’t miss any information. The other kids in the class seemed to be interested in Cammie’s hands as well.
“Class, please stop ------ Cammie ------ attention ----- I am saying. Addison ----deaf --------.”
Addison’s face turned bright red. She picked up the most important words in Mrs. Smith’s speech to know that her classmates now knew that she was different from them. Different. Weird. Just like she had told her mom before school. The teacher picked back up where she left off, but now Addison couldn’t help but look at Mrs. Smith’s lips to make sure she didn’t reveal anything else to the class she didn’t want out. What was next? Addison doesn’t have a father?
Mrs. Smith’s body language began to give off an uneasy impression. She was annoyed by the children being more interested in Cammie’s body movements rather than the words that were coming out of her mouth. She signaled Cammie over to her desk. When she came back to her seat, she told Addison that they had to sit in the back so that the children wouldn’t be so distracted. Great, Addison thought, a WEIRD distraction.
After they moved, Mrs. Smith seemed to become more anxious when she was speaking. Almost as if she was distracted by the interpreting. At the end of class, as the students were leaving, Mrs. Smith approached Cammie once more.
“Um ----- maybe a different class? --------- deal with the distraction. --------- I’m sorry. ----------- ask Principal Carter ----- reassign her.”
Addison put her head down, ashamed. Cammie’s arms went flying into the air and her face turned red as Addison’s new shirt.
“Reassign her?? What the hell gives YOU the right to try to do that? You’re a teacher! You should be able to deal with multiple distractions, not that being Deaf is even one of them!”
“I’m sorry. It’s just how I feel.”
Addison was afraid to even look up. She immediately flashed back to the day her father left. Her mother and father were arguing about her deafness. Her father felt that getting the cochlear implant was the best option for Addison. He said it could cure her of her disease.
“Disease?!? You think being Deaf is a disease?! It’s been 8 years, Bob, our daughter is Deaf and proud!”
“Proud of what? Why are we proud that our daughter can’t hear!? We can fix her!”
“Fuck you, Bob! Fix her?!? She’s not broken!!!”
So, he left. He wrote Addison a letter and slipped it under her door in the middle of the night. With the note, he attached a pamphlet about cochlear implants. Addison had a friend Jimmy who got the implant when he was nine. Jimmy said the implant helped him hear some sounds, but it always sounded fuzzy and magnetic. He wished he could wear his hearing aids instead.
Two o’clock came and the buses were lined up at the front of the building. Cammie told Addison that she was going to have a meeting with the principal after school and not to worry about Mrs. Smith. How could she not? Addison made her way down a flight of stairs and two hallways. As she was walking outside, she passed Mrs. Smith. They both put their heads down as if from two spectrums of embarrassment. Addison walked quietly to her bus and sat down in the second seat from the front. Mrs. Smith walked through the parking lot to her car and started on her way home.
Addison walked through her front door and went straight to her bedroom with bloodshot eyes. She was alone. Her mother usually got home around five o’clock. She got undressed, took off her hearing aids, and started a shower. She was hoping to wash off the embarrassment of today before her mother got home.
Mrs. Smith arrived at home looking defeated. She walked up her stone driveway to her front door. It was locked. She looked back and saw that her daughter’s car was home and began to bang on the front door. After a minute or two, she pulled out her keys and unlocked the door herself.
“Hello?? Didn’t you hear me knocking?!” she yelled from the foyer.
There was no response. She walked into the kitchen to find her daughter sitting at the table, facing the bay window, eating a sandwich.
“Daphne!”
Still no response. Mrs. Smith walked over angrily and slapped her hands on the table trying to get her daughters attention. Daphne reached behind her right ear.
Click.
“Sorry Mom, my implant wasn’t in. How was school?”