What if...

What if your husband died? Would you marry another Deaf man, or would you marry a hearing man? Would you continue to attend church with the Deaf congregation? Would you continue to sign with your kids? Would you continue to associate with the Deaf Community? What if...?

Surprisingly, I have been asked these questions or questions like these before. I've thought of them myself over the years. No one likes the thought of the love of their life passing away, but the questions do come up... What if...? What would I do?

May I Have Your Autograph?

Have you ever been in a public place and noticed someone famous? Did you see other people (maybe even yourself) go up to them and ask for their autograph - regardless of who they were with or what they were doing? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be that famous person? Well, being married to a Deaf person is almost just like that! Almost...

A typical "eating out" experience!

Traditionally, when a man takes a woman out to a restaurant to eat the waiter/waitress will give HIM the bill to pay…not us!!!  99% of the time when my husband and I go out to a restaurant to eat (of course I don’t hide the fact that I’m hearing or that he’s deaf) I am given the bill to pay!  As if his deafness prevents him from giving the server a card to pay with or even cash.  HAHA!!!  So, I’m trying now to educate the public by telling the servers that proceed to hand me the bill that they can give it to him-it’s okay.

Life During Courtship (and even since then)

I have to say I am so glad we became friends first.  I do believe that the friendship part has to be the biggest part of a relationship—a friend like that will still love you, forgive you, help you, try to understand you, grow with you and that is so imperative!

NOW, regardless of what I said about being friends first (and it was a good thing we were!), during our courtship we had many bumps to get over…some minor emotional scrapes and some major open wounds!!! BUT, we loved each other enough to be patient and try to be understanding through miscommunications.  There were, honestly, things that I had to “just let go of” that I felt were never going to get resolved because he just couldn’t see it the way I did.  Perhaps it is from our experiences of being different-deaf and hearing-and having the influence of two different cultures that shaped our ideas and thoughts…and definitely how we see the world.

Mrs. P's Tip Number One

"Are you sure you're not marring him because you feel sorry for him?"

"You're marrying a deaf man? That's... interesting..."

"She's hearing? Ooohhh... Ok..."

"Does she at least know ASL?"

And the list goes on... 

First official dinner together

(Our dinner was not romantic in nature by any means!  We were just barely acquaintances...kind of!)

A Rude Awakening

The morning began like this... "Honey... We need to talk..."

No conversation that starts with "we need to talk" is ever going to be a good one. Let me give you some back story...