Waiting for Water

Communication is vital to my life. My marriage depends on being able to communicate despite long physical distances, iffy Internet service, varying time zones, and hastily written emails. My husband and I are constantly trying to improve and become more effective at communicating so that when we can only hear that the other one is talking on Skype, we can glean enough information from playing "fill in the blanks".
When I was pregnant with Anna they cautioned that because of my illness at a certain point we ran the risk of Deafness...I actually sighed a huge sigh of relief that that was "all" because I know ASL...I could communicate, we could bond and get to know each other.
When we were in the hospital they cautioned the same with Nolen because of the antibiotics he was on...and I sighed feeling relief...once again this was the "devil that I know". What they didn't say was that his hands wouldn't work...or that a lot of Encephalitis survivors can't connect spoken words with meanings or figure out how to produce a word with their desired intent. They didn't warn me that he could be trapped and I could spend my days searching his sweet face trying to "see a connection". That I would sign "eat", "more", and "all done" for months and not see any desire to reciprocate (even though the girls were signing already at this age). So I sign, repeat verbally, babble incessantly back at my little man hoping that something starts chipping away at that wall barring our ability to communicate. Oh how I live for our "water" day...



*reference to Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan in the Miracle Worker*


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