I remember learning of his diagnosis in a language that was not my own and I remember being made to feel ignorant because I did not understand the language.
I remember having to repeat a word at least and I am not kidding, 100 times before it would even think of entering Jordan's vocabulary.
I remember standing outside of his preschool bawling my eyes out as he bawled his eyes out from inside that school because I left him to a classroom of hearing kids and he was not able to communicate.
I remember when the preschool teachers told me to hold him back a year, because he was potentially dangerous.
I remember struggling to teach him to read when he was four years old so that he would be ahead before entering elementary school...in that way, he could compensate for his language skills.
I remember when my parents repeatedly asked me when he would learn to speak English as I was struggling to teach him Italian.
I remember when my mother-in-law told me I was going to destroy my son the precise moment I told her I was pregnant with Sofia Madyson.
I remember when Jordan threw a chair across the room in frustration because another child knocked his cochlear implant processor off his head and he got so scared, he didn't know what to do.
I remember when...
he sang for the first time in a choir
he played his guitar in front of an audience of fifty
he spoke about what it means to be Deaf before 200 people
he won honorable mention for an essay on what it means to be Deaf
he helped another parent of a Deaf child
he asked me to help him get a girlfriend
he played hide-and-go-seek and heard the person counting say, "Ready or not here I come"
he said to me, "Mom, can you answer me...what are you Deaf?"
Tuscan Regional Pediatric Courses in Newborn Hearing Screening and Deafness have been approved and I will be teaching 500 pediatricians about Parental Support in Deafness...
Let
Me
At
Them.
