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So this confession is honest but it may not make you like me better. It's the true story of how it was.

I definitely resented my parents at times, not necessarily for being deaf, but for some of their choices. I mean, I understood that they had no control over being born deaf, but they could hear well enough to make things tricky. My dad had a profound hearing loss which means total nerve damage, but through a series of blessings given to him over the years, he functioned far better than people with lesser hearing losses. My mom had a severe hearing loss. She could maybe hear 20% of what was going on around her. She and my dad were both raised orally, meaning with intensive speech therapy and no sign language, so they were master lip readers and speakers, and extremely competent at understanding content based on context. They both learned sign language in college and switched to that as their primary form of communication, but their ability to speak and lip read...well, sometimes even I got suspicious...

I mean, were they really deaf? It seemed sometimes like they could hear when they wanted to. As a kid, I often wondered if they were faking being deaf and just tricking us so they could get us kids to do more stuff for them. As an adult, I found out that my younger brother and sister had the same suspicions.

As it turned out though, they really were deaf.

The resentment came from having to do a lot of things that other little kids never had to do, and since I'm the oldest, most of it fell to me to take care of. It's pretty easy for deaf people to communicate now, what with email and Blackberries and video relay services. As a kid, I didn't have any of that stuff to bail me out. At six years old, I would have to call and make doctor's appointments or handle calls to my parents if they couldn't understand the person on the other end. With their hearing aids and the special volume control they had on the phone, they could get by most of the time, but they needed me often enough for it to wear thin, sometimes.

As I got older, the resentment came from other things. These are the choices I mentioned. We never did sports as kids because my parents didn't have the money and my dad's health was too poor to invest in something like that. However, as we grew older, my siblings and I (there's just the three of us) got involved with things in high school, especially academic stuff. I went to the national mock trial competition with two different states (Louisiana and then California) and they never came to see one match, not even at the county level. My dad said they would be bored without interpreters.

It really bothered me. I felt like it was kind of beside the point. I figured the point was just to show up and be there, but they didn't see it that way. My brother kind of felt like that too. I guess over time we learned to shrug it off, but not completely. It still bothers me, sometimes.

Also, we attended a deaf branch when we moved back to California. It was awesome for my parents because they finally got to participate fully in church and I was happy about that, but we got tapped to interpret a lot in church when there weren't enough adults to go around and sometimes...we just wanted to be kids, to enjoy youth conference without having to interpret for a classmate or whatever. Most CODAs feel this way at some point.

There were compensations, though. My parents died two years ago, but I have rich memories of them centered in the language of thought, which is probably the best way to explain ASL. There are things you just can't explain in English that are so easy to get across in ASL. I have great memories of my mom explaining the origin of certain signs to me in a way that made them indelible, and I bet no one else has ever thought of the same explanation. I'll always remember how lovely she looked when she led the congregation in hymns every Sunday, her hands tracing out concepts about God and glory and grace in the air, painting the clearest picture. I'll always remember the way my dad's face would move so expressively, perfectly conveying his thoughts which is an earmark of ASL. I'll always remember his contributions to spreading the gospel in the deaf community. He and his three companions were the first LDS missionaries called to teach the gospel to the deaf, and in later years he worked on helping the Church translate the scriptures into ASL dvds.

So in yesterday's question, Josi asked how I reconciled the issue of their deafness in my life and how it relates to me as an adult. The answer is that in hindsight, they did their best, but sometimes the load was heavy and as children we were asked to shoulder a part. I don't think it's anything different than what many children have done for their parents whether it's because of a disability or a language barrier. And I know my life is far richer for the experience.

Thanks, Josi, for asking the question. I think later this week I'll revisit deafness once more for the time being to share the lighter side too, because believe me, there are some funny things about deaf culture and growing up in it. And maybe even later, I'll share a little more of the tought stuff, too, but honestly? It all shook out all right, you know?