Communication Is Not Just Words

Ashley is deaf and uses sign language to communicate.  She does not speak any words, but that doesn’t mean she is quiet!  She has an entire repertoire of sounds, and once someone gets to know her, the sounds can be interpreted as easily as words.  So it really saddened me when she was sick recently, and the sounds stopped.

It was one of my first indications that she was getting sick.  I didn’t hear the cheerful chattering noises early in the morning just before she gets up.  And I didn’t hear the lower pitched uttering indicating that I had chosen the wrong shirt for her to wear that day.  I didn’t hear the rhythmic ‘ahhhh ahhhhh’ as she rocked herself to sleep, and I never once heard the ‘aye yu huh’ that means ‘what the hell?’ (quite a common phrase Ashley uses J

Our non-speaking children tell us so much even without the use of words.  And as much as I would love to hear a word every now and then, the sounds Ashley makes are the music of my days.  I’m sad when the music stops…