A visitor of note

There is an excitement in the air - our daughter and sister is coming home for the holidays!  Then suddenly a moment of anxiety... She's bringing a guest along and we have to prepare our hearts, minds, eyes,ears and most importan for this visitor.

The immediate question would be what the eyes and ears have to do with this visitor cause its not about the outer appearance or what comes out of her mouth... Well, this visitor is someone very special.  Like my daughter she is hearing impaired - however, the difference between them is that Kaye-Lynne my daughter can speak as she wears a cochlear implant (more on this at another time) and this girl - Rachel only signs to communicate her needs, pleasures, discontent, etc.

At last they arrive and I'm over the moon greeting my (now all grown up girl) with a long hug and kiss and then I face this young lady that I will need to communicate with in sign.

It is obviously a very nerve-wrecking moment for me, but for these girls my nervousness is absolutely hilarious as they break down in giggles like young girls usually do (perhaps hiding their own nervousness in this reaction)

Ok, so I've never really bothered to learn to sign as we have always treated Kaye as normal as possible, sometimes forgetting that she is actually almost 95% deaf.  Because she speaks and actually responds to us talking to her, it never really became necessary for us to make a point of getting to know this beautiful language called sign language.

Our conversation for the first hour was very limited as it was a tread lightly, be careful how you form  your words.
I speak very fast and at times she would look helplessly at Kaye-Lynne signing that she doesn't understand, causing me to back track on my communication until it just dissolved into silence after some time.

The last thing I said (in sign mind you :) was GOOD NIGHT

It promises to be a very exciting, challenging and interesting week and I will definitely come back with some pictures of our time together and some more titbits around our communication barriers.

Another memory to file in my cabinet of memories somewhere in the back of my mind...

Stay healthy and take care!

Me