Little things you notice:
Three
different times, as I walked past the church called La Merced, I saw a man cross himself as he passed in the other
direction. This was not the same man, mind you, but three different men, and
one time, the man I saw was riding a bike as he crossed himself. It was a small
motion, private.
On
another evening, the son of our dueña
came to visit. He wanted to introduce his nine-year-old daughter to us, and he
called her to him with an outstretched hand. If it had been me, I would have
cupped my hand upward, ready to catch rain perhaps, or a gift. But he was
Guatemalan, so he called her with his hand cupped down as his fingers motioned.
His hand was the perfect shape to curve gently over her head.
Then
on the plane ride home, we chanced to sit next to one of our former students.
This really happened. Eric had been in my literature class last year, and
Mark’s homeroom class his freshman year. Eric should have graduated last month,
but somewhere between the lit class and graduation he dropped out, and
completed a G.E.D. instead. This plane ride was his first one ever, and he
watched the landscape below his window with wide eyes. We chatted, and he told
us of a summer visit to his mother, where she is a student at Gallaudet
University, the university for deaf people. He was a coda he said, and he must
have seen the question in my eyes, because he explained that CODA means “child
of a deaf adult.” He told us
about working at Gallaudet, as a counselor at their summer camp for deaf
children and codas, the challenges and the rewards he experienced. “You just
fall in love with the kids,” he said, and his eyes glowed.
Now this is where your heart
breaks, because this kid didn’t do well in high school, but he’s obviously
bright and eager, and you wonder where the system let him down. Here he is,
bilingual in ASL and English, loving working with kids, and yet he doesn’t know
what he wants to do in the future. I didn’t know any of this when he was in my
classroom last year; I only knew of his interest in skateboarding. I enter my
classroom with the intention of being an insightful, caring, helpful adult in
the lives of my students. How could I have missed so much? Eric tells us a funny story about checking
in at the airline counter in Baltimore. He had been waiting in line with his
mother and her boyfriend, conversing in sign with them both. When it was his
turn at the ticket counter, the agent had called in a sign interpreter to help,
not realizing that Eric could also hear and speak. He chuckles again over the
humor of the moment, and the flight attendant stops by to offer us soft drinks.
As Eric accepts his cup, he thanks her, and out of the corner of my eye I
notice his hand flick away from his chest, thumb extended, saying thank you
twice.
A few small signs, caught with
peripheral vision. Who can count the signs I miss every day?
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