Christ UMC of the Deaf was in the middle of a two week Deaf Cultural Immersion class when I arrived home from my extremely long christmas break. The Immersion class spent two weeks learing all about Deaf culture. They visited the Maryland Rely Center, Gallaudet University, Maryland School for the Deaf Columbia Campus christian education, Stayed with Deaf families and much more.
One of the evernings I was blessed with the opportunity to join the group to hear a pannel of CODAs speak about what it was like to grow up a Child Of Deaf Adults. The stories ranged from hilarious to heart wrenching.
One woman recalled a story of when she was in 5th grade and she was not turning in her homework. Her teacher sent her home with a letter for her parents and said that they had to sign the letter. A week later when the teacher had not recieved back the letter she told the girl that she was going to drive her home and talk to her parents. This did not bother the girl one bit because she knew that she would have to interpret for the teacher. When they arrived to her house she told her parents that her teacher came over to warn them of a friend of hers that was doing very badly in school.
Many funny stories were shared, all the CODAs proclaimed that they were very proud to be a CODA. Then the stories shifted to a different tone. One woman talked about how she missed out on some normal kid times in her life because she was busy interpreting for her parents. Another talked about being embarrassed when other children would make fun of the way her parents sounded.
Then one woman told the group about the time that she needed to interpret a doctors appointment for her father. Her father had gone to the doctor to recieve news on whether or not he had cancer. She was ten. She wore dark sunglasses because she thought that if her father saw her cry he would be too sad and it would make him become more sick. She had already decided that she was not going to tell him the truth if the test results came back positive. She said "That was the hardest thing I have ever done."
That was a beautiful night. All of the CODAs shared their life stories with us and welcomed us into a very personal place in their hearts. I came away from the night reminded that we all face the laughter and the hardship. All of the CODAs said that they would have their parents no other way than the way God made them. Through the hardships God blessed the CODAs with the gift of being bi-lingual, with the ability to care for others, and with a sense of maturity.
Our God is an Awesome God. Peace.
