I was looking over my list from yesterday and realized I forgot one very important thing: Friends! But friends are so important they deserve a post all their own!
I am so grateful for my friends. Growing up, I had many acquaintances but only a few real friends. This was mostly due to communication barriers. I grew up oral--depending on lipreading and speaking for communication. Though I can speak and lipread well, participating in group conversations is very difficult. It's just about impossible to keep track of a conversation when several people are involved and they could be interrupting or talking over each other. And it takes a few seconds to locate the speaker and then another few seconds to "tune in" to lipreading them. When you think about how quickly spoken conversation can move, no wonder I always felt more comfortable in one-on-one conversational situations.
I was 19 when I learned sign language. That was also when I started meeting other Deaf students who were attending Utah State University. That was the spring of my freshman year. My sophomore year was when my life really changed. That year I lived in one of the residence halls on campus. A group of Deaf students lived one residence hall over and so I spent a great deal of time with them. That year was also the beginning of several years of a large Deaf student population that came to include interpreters and other hearing students who were also learning ASL. The highlight of that year was putting on an ASL version of "Les Miserables". To this day, I still remember the songs we used and the ASL translations. And Les Miz is still one of my favorite musicals. I can't wait for the film release next month!
After my sophomore year of college, I served an 18 month mission for the LDS Church. I really developed my ASL skills during this time. When I came back, some friends had moved on but there were lots more Deaf students to get to know!
After I married The Writer and moved to Provo, I met a whole new group of friends. Well, I guess that's not exactly accurate. During the almost 1 year we dated and were engaged, we took turns driving to see each other (I lived in Logan, he lived in Provo) on weekends. We frequently hung out with his friends. We also went to church together and so I became acquainted with many of the Utah Valley Deaf Ward members. After I moved there and was going to church every week, I developed some good friendships. Even though we no longer live in Utah Valley, we are still good friends with many of these couples. Some have moved but we still keep in touch. And now we have friends in our current city and ward.
Our friends have been with us through our ups and downs. They were there when we got married. They were thrilled for us when each of our children were born. They were sad when we had to move. They took care of our children (and we took care of theirs). We have celebrated holidays and special occasions with them. We have helped them when they needed help and they did the same for us. We have watched football games and basketball games together. We have watched General Conference (semiannual meeting of the LDS Church, held in April and October) together. We have had BBQs and potlucks together.
What I think makes our current friends so special to us is that we can COMMUNICATE. Everyone knows ASL and that makes a world of difference in being able to understand and stay involved in a conversation.
Some friends we don't see as much but when we do get together, it's like we saw each other just yesterday. We dive right back in to chatting and catching up with each others' lives. I am also grateful for social media such as blogs and Facebook that allows us to post pictures and little details of what we are doing in our daily lives.
To all my friends, I am grateful for you!
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