Author: Karen Putz

I’m one proud Mama this morning:

Deaf Students Prepare for “Dorothy Meets Alice.”

You know those email tidbits that get sent over and over around the internet? Well, I don’t usually read through many of them, but my cousin Chris sent me this one below and I thought it was beautiful. I don’t know who the original author is so I can’t give any credit. Here it is:

Recently I overheard a mother and daughter in their last moments together at the airport. They had announced the departure.

Standing near the security gate, they hugged and the mother said, “I love you and I wish you enough”.

The daughter replied, “Mom, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Mom”.

They kissed and the daughter left. The mother walked over to the window where I was seated. Standing there I could see she wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on her privacy but she welcomed me in by asking,”Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?”.

Yes, I have,” I replied. “Forgive me for asking,but why is this a forever good-bye?”.

“I am old and she lives so far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is – the next trip back will be for my funeral,” she said.

“When you were saying good-bye, I heard you say, ‘I wish you enough’. May I ask what that means?”.

She began to smile.

“That’s a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone”. She paused a moment and looked up as if trying to remember it in detail and she smiled even more. “When we said, ‘I wish you enough’, we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them”. Then turning toward me, she shared the following as if she were reciting it from memory:

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude
bright no matter how gray the day may appear.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun even more.

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive and everlasting.

I wish you enough pain so that even the smallest of joys in life may appear bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye.

She then began to cry and walked away.

They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them but then an entire life to forget them.

Chris lost her mom not too long ago so I know this is special to her.

Wishing you “enough” right back at you.

Yesterday, I headed west to Northern Illinois University for my annual visit with Dr. Ouellette. Dr. Ouellette is the Department Chair for the School of Allied Health. Each year, I speak to her graduate class about Hands & Voices and raising deaf and hard of hearing children. Every year, we grab lunch together before class and catch up on life.

After the class was over, I headed over to the Health building and visited some old friends and staff. It has been 23 years since I first set foot on campus, but many of the same staff are still there. And each year that I come back to NIU, I’m more and more aware of how quickly time is passing by. I used to babysit for many of the staff at NIU and now their kids are in college and in some cases, starting families.

Ah, but what really broke my heart was seeing a popular bar shuttered and up for lease:

There were some good memories at that bar!

A few months ago, I was asked by Disaboom.com to join their group of bloggers writing about life. My blog posts can be found here: Deaf Mom’s Disaboom.

Disaboom is a brand new website that focuses on disability topics and people with disabilities. The website launched in October of this year, and will re-launch with some improved changes in January of next year. The Vancouver Sun recently did an article on Disaboom: Disaboom Gathers Disabled. One of my blog posts has a brief mention in there.

Here are some of the popular blog posts I’ve done at Disaboom:

Carmel Flores

Disability Blogs on the Web

Meet Stephen Hopson

Henry Kisor Releases New Mystery Novel

The Deaf Freedom Cruise

Deaf People Have Signaoke!

It was a cold, blustery day for a funeral today. St. Alphonsus Church, located in the heart of Lincoln Park, was filled with friends and family who came to remember Barbe Gurga, a deaf Rehabilitation Counselor. For 21 years, Barbe worked with countless deaf and hard of hearing clients to develop their careers and assist in finding jobs. In April, 2004, Barbe was diagnosed with uterine cancer. Even after getting round after round of chemotherapy, Barbe headed off to work as long as she could.

My first encounter with Barbe was back in 1989. I headed to her office from graduate school to shadow her on the job for several days. Each day, we went out to lunch and chatted up storm. I remember asking her, “Do you like what you do?” Barbe smiled and said, “Yes, I love my job and the people I help, I just don’t like the paperwork.”

I continued to see Barbe at meetings and advocacy events throughout the years. Then I had my kids and focused on being a mom and I saw her less and less. But each time I ran into Barbe, she always had a smile on her face and a positive outlook on life.

The Eulogy was given by Jay Blumenfeld and signed by Howard Rosenblum. Jay recalled some of Barbe’s last days:

“She told me she wanted to get better so she could go back to Switzerland and ride her moped through the mountains and feel the wind blowing on her face with birds soaring high in the sky. I looked at her with a smile while she was telling me her dream, thinking that she would not be able to go back. But now I do realize her dream did come true–it’s called Heaven. Barbe is now free and she can ride her moped anywhere and anytime her wonderful, beautiful spirit takes her!”

So Barbe, girl– ride like the wind!

My neighbor, Rick, took a business class two years ago where the students had to come up with an idea and write a persuasive paper on that idea. Rick watched his son come home with heavy textbooks each day and thought, why not develop an electronic book for all of the textbooks?

Ah, but someone beat him to the idea. It probably won’t be long until schools switch over to the newest product at Amazon: Kindle

At $399, the Kindle is flying off the shelves and currently out of stock. Amazon is stocking up and filling orders as fast as they can. There are 90,000 titles that can be downloaded wirelessly from anywhere–no need for a PC or wireless hotspot. Each book or bestselling title can be loaded for $9.99 and read over and over.

As much as I love the feel and look of books, I have to admit that it would be nice to have this nifty device for traveling. I like to bring four or more books sometimes in case I don’t like one of them and having a Kindle would mean having to pack one simple thing.

So if you’re looking for some ideas for that special someone, this would make a nice holiday gift for those who spend a few hundred on a loved one.

Rick–head over to the educational companies and go make a deal with the Kindle.

A couple of weeks ago, my son David asked if he could have a new friend over. “Sure,” I said. After all, the reason we fought to have him attend a different high school was to end the social isolation he was experiencing in middle school.

David’s friend Aleksey came over with another friend and the guys played video games. Aleksey and his friend came over another weekend, playing video games and hanging out. It was clear that David enjoyed being with his new friends.

Aleksey’s story is an interesting one. Born with Treacher Collins Syndrome, he grew up in an orphanage in Russia and came to America just before he turned twelve. His parents found him through the Children’s Hope International. You can read more about Aleksey here: The Ultimate Survivor.

Aleksey will be featured on the ABC News this morning at 11 a.m CST through an interview with Karen Meyer. The transcript is up and the captioned video will be available later today. Deaf Gymnast Excels.

It’s Wordless Wednesday! Here’s Kaycie waiting for the kids to come home from school.

It was the news that I was hoping not to hear. For the past few days, I have been reading about Emma Agnew, a deaf woman from New Zealand. She went off to meet someone about selling her car and was missing for nearly two weeks. Christy Smith, a deaf participant on the Survivor show, posted information about Emma on her blog: The Search for Emma. Jamie Berke from About.com also urged readers to help find Emma.

This has a terrible, sad ending: Emma was found murdered. A 35-year-old man has been arrested, his identity has not been released. More can be found here: Deaf Community in Mourning.

My heart goes out to the family and the Deaf Community of New Zealand.

An interview with the family can be found here: Emma Agnew: Living Life to the Full.

When my friend’s son Matthew attended sports camp this summer at the Illinois School for the Deaf, he told his Mom, “I want to go to school here.”

Sue never thought that she would consider a residential school as an option for her kids. Sue is deaf and she grew up attending schools that had several deaf students within a regular school. She always had one or two deaf friends to hang around with when she was growing up. She attended Hinsdale South, which had several hundred deaf students back in the 80’s.

So when Sue saw the isolation that Matthew’s brother, Alex, was experiencing during his freshman year at their local high school, she decided it was time to take some action. Hinsdale South wasn’t an option for them unless they moved to a district that would accept placement there. Sue sat down with Alex and together, they made the decision to enroll at the Illinois School for the Deaf.

Sue called an IEP meeting with the district team and explained the reasons for her decision. “I was tired of seeing my kids socially isolated,” Sue shared. “And when I explained this to the team, one of them simply said, ‘they’re all isolated.’”

For the same reason, Illinois School for the Deaf is now experiencing growth at a time when other schools for the deaf are struggling to keep their students. A recent newspaper article explains more: ISD Sees Enrollment Boom.

Social isolation for deaf and hard of hearing kids is a subject that is difficult to talk about and difficult to remedy when schools have rigid boundaries and limited regional programs.

To me, the solution seems simple: break down the boundaries and allow parents to choose school programs with a critical mass of deaf and hard of hearing students without having to fight for them.

For Sue, it will be hard to send her two sons off to Illinois School for the Deaf in January, but she knows that it is the right decision for her family.

“It’s time to end the social isolation,” she says.