Just Me

  Image credit: Alexandra_Koch via Pixabay   Today may be a day for giving thanks, but I’m one of those people who practices gratitude every day. They say that the more often you give thanks for what you have, the more you will receive to be thankful for. I have found this to be true. I believe that a lot of the good things that have happened in my life, and especially this year, has a lot to do with the practice of being grateful for what I have and expressing that gratitude. I begin every day by saying “thank you” and feeling that wave of gratitude flood through me as I mentally echo my thanks.   Yes, there has been some bad things that have happened this year. I lost my brother and I was devastated by this loss, but I am extremely thankful that he was in my life, that he was my brother, and that he was a good brother at that. And, yes, my son lost his dog, and this loss was a huge blow to all of us because we loved him so very much, but we are thankful that he wa...

  Shortly after I became deaf, my parents knew we would have to figure out how this new communication barrier we were now faced with was going to change the way we communicated. I would no longer be able to hear anyone calling for me from another room and I could not communicate with them when they talked to me while having their face turned away. We knew perfectly well that, from that point forward, my deafness was going to change how everyone in the family communicated with me. (I was the only deaf person in the family.)   One thing they did was write things down. Nobody learned sign language right away; it was as though using sign language to communicate with me was a last resort. Because of this “no sign language” rule in our home, I didn’t learn sign language either. Communication was either via written notes or lipreading.   But mostly lipreading.   My parents really wanted me to use lipreading as a form of communication. “We live in a hearing wor...