Thursday, January 29, 2009
this is a....highly embarrassing essay. The instructions was to rewrite the story from the view of another character. =P and i got full marks. so i'm pretty happy. cos the proff said it's really hard to ever get full marks on a response. ^^
The first time I saw my mother-in-law, her face held poorly concealed shock combined with an emotion I could not decipher immediately. I guess the shock was due to the sign language Abel and I used for communication. It was strange to her; it was a language to us, the only one that ever really meant anything. I approached her and greeted her vocally. She must have understood my stilted words because she accepted my outstretched hand. My heart thought optimistically that this was the start of a beautiful relationship. My father-in-law seemed more relaxed, he probably felt a kindred sympathy with me, and I mouthed my greeting to him accompanied by signs. I think he realized that this was a new and improved way of communication for the deaf that would break the silence that we lived in.
Sarah, my mother-in-law, gave Abel and I a tour of the house. I fear we left her out of our conversation too often, but we were desperate to communicate with each other about new thoughts and ideas that the house brought up in us. Our communication was her silence, and once when I turned, I glimpsed a fierce jealousy on her face that disappeared immediately when she noticed me watching. I felt bad for her; she suffered muteness for years in a house full of deaf people. If only she could speak our language, the language Abel and I spoke, the language that I hoped to teach my father-in-law and brothers-in-law, then her world would not need to be silent.
As the days passed, Sarah was nothing but the picture of cordiality to me. Yet every morning when I would offer to help in the kitchen, she refused to let me help, and I knew she felt resentment towards me, the woman who could communicate better with her son than herself. I wanted to share this communication with her, I truly did, but she was not yet ready. My days were mostly spent at my husband’s side, and it was he who taught me what his mother would not.
Finally Sarah showed her disapproval and punished Abel’s younger brothers for learning signs, words, from me. Later, she explanted to me in her silent language, that her family did not use signs, it wasn’t their way. Her expression made the word “signs” seem like a filthy word. I was confused. For her to be uncomfortable about a change in the way her family communicated I could understand, but I could not understand how a mother could be so violently unhappy at her family finally having a way to break their silence. It seemed like selfishness to me.
One supper when Sarah went to prepare dessert, I took the opportunity to quickly teach several words to Abel’s father and brothers. When she returned, she was confronted with a vibrant, communicating family, fingers fluttering, speaking words that I slowly taught. Suddenly, we all saw her watching and there was silence again. Sarah said nothing, and after awhile she returned to the kitchen and stayed there for quite a time. We resumed our talking, and broke up abruptly yet again when she returned. I saw tear streaks on her care-worn face, and I knew something had changed. The others all knew it too. We all watched her intently to see what had happened. Sarah held her hands out; she spoke in her silent language, telling us she wanted the communication that we had. I felt it right that the first words her husband heard her say was the simplest and yet most meaningful expression known to man. I signed it first to her, and she repeated it to Matthew, her husband. “I love you,” she signed slowly but surely, “I love you.”
& it's a new day at{ 9:29 AM
