How Can a Person Who Can’t See Talk to a Person Who Can’t Hear?

A common reaction upon discovering I am blind during initial greetings is, “Oh, do you know sign language?” No kidding.

They mean well, and I appreciate the effort. They haven’t thought about how I would see the hand movements without vision. Although I’d like to educate them, I pause to ponder how to frame a response because I do know quite a bit of sign language.

in high school, I did some volunteer work in Columbia, Missouri with the mentally handicapped. Several of them were deaf and I desired to communicate with them. I even bought a book and taught myself, that is, for a few years before learning of my hereditary, progressive eye disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa.

My husband found this bit of trivia most fascinating so I taught him the alphabet and a few words in sign language. Years ago, it came in handy when a deaf couple stopped by the church we pastored. Notes were mostly passed, but I would sign to them. Naturally, they signed back facing me. Awkward and comical moments pursued. Everyone was patient as Steve attempted to translate using descriptive words, and having me feel his fingers and hands. Since I homeschooled my daughter, I taught her sign as well.

A few years ago, the police department called us with an 18- year-old runaway. Due to my husband and I’s ministry to the homeless and poor, it wasn’t unusual for us to receive calls from businesses and other churches in our community in certain situations.

Deaf since birth and writing notes to communicate, we knew this would be different than normal. He would easily be taken advantage of in a homeless shelter so we invited him to stay in our home until we could find the appropriate resources and paperwork.

All seemed normal as long as my daughter or husband was there to write notes. For fun, I would sign to him and he would sign back, them interpreting, of course.

I often fought the urge to holler his name. “He can’t hear me,” I’d remember. Wow, my brain was forced to think opposite than normal. Then, I’d confidently begin signing towards a noise when hearing one.

“Mom,” my daughter politely interrupted. “He’s not looking. He’s on his computer.”

Yes, it felt a bit like a circus. Sometimes my daughter would be upstairs and my husband gone. I would sign if I knew the words, or write on a pad of paper, hoping I wasn’t writing over someone else’s note. That is if he indeed was looking my direction. When this deaf young man wanted my attention, he’d grab my hand to feel his. If that failed, he tried to fingerspell in my palm. However, I wasn’t as gifted as Helen Keller.

Discovering appropriate resources took longer than expected One day, my daughter and husband were both absent. I was praying he’d keep himself occupied until someone returned. After all, he lived on his computer, playing games, or chatting on Facebook. But, the inevitable happened. He wanted permission to use the internet so approached me. Frustrated, he pecked his fingers on the top of my forearm. Needing to tell him a lengthy explanation, I got an idea. Off to my computer we went. Pulling up a word document, I typed a message for him to read. I then handed him my keyboard to respond and my sweet screen reader read his response out loud to me. Problem solved.

QUESTION: What lengths are you willing to go to when an obstacle forces you to want to give up? I’d love for my screen reader to read your answers in the comments below.

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© 2020, Jena Fellers. All rights reserved.