by Brandi Rarus
Tim’s mother kept telling him that things had become so much better for deaf people, and he was happy to be living in such good times. His mother really amazed me. She was the first deaf principal at the Arizona School for the Deaf, where Tim attended, at a time when neither deaf nor hearing women held key administrative positions. Because Tim’s grandfather was a strong advocate for the deaf, she, too, would become a fervent advocate and educator in her own right. Just like Tim’s grandfather, she believed that both deaf and hearing people had to be educated about one another.
In the 1980s, she spearheaded a group in Tucson, Arizona, that was raising money to build a Deaf community center. To acquire funds for the people she was representing, his mother testified before a group of hearing mayors and commissioners, saying that there needed to be a place where deaf people could assemble and that if they didn’t support their project, it would be like going back to Greek and Roman times when deaf people were thrown into prison and forgotten about.
Yet it was Tim’s grandfather who stood out as his hero in his family because of all that he had accomplished. His grandfather had put himself through graduate school, earning three degrees without any support whatsoever at a time when deaf people didn’t have access to interpreters or notetakers—it was unprecedented. The man knew four different languages, including sign language, and he also lip-read. Tim’s parents had divorced when he was six, so his grandfather became a surrogate father to him. Throughout his childhood, he heard stories about his grandfather’s political involvements—how he had lobbied for the NAD at state associations and conferences, particularly in New Jersey where he lived, and for the National Fraternal Society of the Deaf, an organization that helped deaf people get car insurance. Back in the 1970s, although it was legal for deaf people to drive, insurance companies wouldn’t sell them car insurance. His grandfather was also the founder and president of the New Jersey Association of the Deaf. Tim saw him educating people by explaining who deaf people were and how they did things. He listened to his grandfather tell stories about how deaf people had been put in jail for months for crimes they hadn’t committed and didn’t receive due process or have interpreters at their trials.
Despite his lack of access to information, despite having to work three times harder than his hearing counterparts while in school and at work because he didn’t have an interpreter (he was the only deaf employee at AT&T), and despite being treated like a second-class citizen at restaurants, hotels, and other public places his entire life, he never complained and was grateful for what had been given him. He wanted Tim to appreciate all that he had, as well, which was why he was against him marching at Gallaudet. He told Tim that he had to try harder and had to “earn his keep” with hearing people—that to achieve his goals and make his way in the world, he had to listen better and have better relationships with the people around him. He told Tim to jump into situations and work them out—that there were no shortcuts—and that he had to respect that process. Above all, he taught Tim to respect his elders.
It took some time for Tim to see the wisdom in his grandfather’s ways, and until then he idolized him and yearned for his approval, but felt like he could never be like him or live up to his standards. When we achieved our victory at Gallaudet, his grandfather said to him, “You were right, my grandson.” Tim felt like he was finally becoming a man who would make his grandfather proud.
It was through pure osmosis and because of his intelligence, decency, and passionate nature that Tim’s intolerance for inequity and need to stand up and fight for what he believed in became a thread in his being and a guiding principle in his life.
It started way back in preschool when he had to wear a horrid device that helped him to practice speaking—a black box that had two cords coming out in front of him. Back in the early 70s, even though students at the deaf schools signed with each other and with their teachers, the emphasis was still on speech reading. At the American School for the Deaf, which Tim attended through fourth grade, it was the same thing; they used speech very often as a means to communicate.
Oh, it made his blood boil. His teachers would smoke and drink coffee and make him say, “M” or “B” with a feather in front of his mouth. They’d tell him, “Say, ‘in, in’ like this. It’s with your nose,” then the following day tell him that it didn’t sound right. He did it over and over again. He saw no value in saying letters he couldn’t hear.
When he was older, he’d go out to eat with his mother, sister, and grandparents, and his grandmother always told him, “Ssshhh, keep it down. Sign small, sign small,” not wanting people to notice them. Tim thought, What’s wrong with us? Why are we hiding this? If hearing people have a problem with it, it’s their problem, not ours. Then he’d sign bigger and bigger, using an eighteen-inch sign box, figuring that you couldn’t get any bigger than that.
Tim’s mother always told him that being deaf was a full-time job and that a lot of work still needed to be done, and it struck him deeply to keep educating and keep advocating. It became clear to him that even though deaf people needed the support of hearing people, we had to decide for ourselves what was best for us. A passion was ignited in him to embrace the challenges that would come his way.
In 1997, six years after we were married, representing the Committee for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, he stood before one of the Senate committees, pointing out the inequity between deaf and hearing people regarding the use of the telephone. (At the time, telephone service was relatively inexpensive for hearing people but expensive for deaf people.) This inequity was partly due to the way that a particular law had been written concerning equipment used in conjunction with telephone networks (such as a telephone, TTY, or amplified phone for the hard of hearing).
But videophones, used by deaf people, required an Internet connection, so the law had to be rewritten to also make it apply to them, reducing the costs of their equipment (which was $900 then compared to $200 or even less today). To change the way the law was written, the proposed change had to go through one of the Senate committees, whose approval was needed before it was brought to the floor for both Houses to vote on. If this law was passed, deaf and hearing people would finally be on equal footing regarding telephone usage.
Tim stood before the committee, which was entirely hearing, and, via his interpreter, asked everyone in the audience to raise their hand if they used a telephone. They all thought he was crazy. He saw everyone looking around the room to see who else had raised their hand. After everyone’s hands were raised, Tim explained that deaf people deserved the same access to the telephone as hearing people—that we, too, should be able to raise our hands.
However, it was about a year after we had started dating that Tim reaped the fruits of all his advocacy—in the past and in the future—this time not at the Capitol but on the South Lawn of the White House. He’d been working for John McCain for about a year and had worked his way up from the mailroom to being involved with disability rights and the ADA. It was summer, and he was the camp director at YLC, when he got a call from McCain, who then flew him from Minnesota to Washington, DC. On July 26, 1990, he and several other McCain staffers and legislators rode in a van to the White House South Lawn and watched President H. W. Bush sign the ADA into law.
The bill had been submitted twice before but hadn’t passed. However, this time when it was submitted, Justin Dart, an activist for people with disabilities who worked with President Bush, mentioned the Gallaudet Protest in their appeal to Congress, helping the bill to finally be passed. The chief sponsor of the act was Senator Tom Harkin, who had a deaf brother and was very passionate about the issue. Harkin garnered support from different senators, including John McCain, to help write some of the titles in the Act: McCain worked on Title IV while Tim was working for him.
Title IV concerned traditional relay services, which laid the foundation for Video Relay Services that today allow both deaf and hearing people to have equal access to the telephone. (Deaf people use vid
eophones that require an Internet connection.) If it hadn’t been for the passing of the ADA, Tim and I probably wouldn’t have careers in video communications today.
A few weeks after the bill was passed, we became engaged. It happened on the night that I crowned the new Miss Deaf America in Indianapolis. I didn’t think that as Miss Deaf America it would be appropriate to be engaged, which Tim understood. However, the minute I put that crown on the girl’s head, he was waiting for me outside the convention hall with a horse and carriage, little roses strewn all around inside. He proposed as we rode around the city.
Eric and I had parted ways earlier that spring, realizing that we were better off as friends. I wrote Matt, who I hadn’t seen in about a year, and told him of my engagement. Since our relationship had been such an important part of both our lives, I felt it was the right thing to do. I wrote, “Someday when I have a daughter with a love of her own, our story will always be one I tell her. I hope she will know a first love as great as ours.”
A year after that Tim and I were married. Father Tom performed our marriage ceremony. I flew him from New York to Naperville, and, in front of 150 people, he married us in my church. What a gift it was to be able to say my vows to Tim directly, one-on-one, in ASL, without having to say them through a third party. The interpreter was there for the hearing people.
I had come full circle from the time, seven years earlier, when I had sat by the water listening to Father Tom. Back then, I couldn’t have even imagined where my life would lead me. Standing before me was the man who had helped me begin my journey to self-acceptance; he was marrying me to the man who had helped me arrive. I felt free, accepting of myself as I truly was. My identity crisis was over, replaced by a sense of power and joy.
ME, TIM, FATHER TOM (left), AND FATHER JERRY (right) AT OUR WEDDING
The following fall, Tim and I moved to Kansas City, Kansas, where I began working for Sprint Communications and Tim began working for Gallaudet University as the assistant director of the Gallaudet Regional Center there. He wanted to have children right away. While I cherished the idea of having children, especially a daughter, the timing just didn’t seem right. I couldn’t possibly have known the lengths to which I’d have to go to hold my daughter in my arms and what it would finally mean to me when I did.
Chapter Five
OUR FAMILY HEARS
WE WAITED TO have kids for three years, and then I didn’t conceive for another three. By then, we were both more than ready. I was hoping for a girl. Throughout my life, I had just always assumed that I’d have a daughter. When I was young, I never dreamt about my wedding day, but I did dream about my daughter.
Tim also wanted to have a daughter; he’d longed to have children. Because of his parents divorcing when he was young, Tim has always wanted to be the kind of hands-on father he had never had. We were both overjoyed when Blake finally entered the world. And we felt the same when Chase followed.
When I became pregnant the third time, I just felt inside that it was another boy. Tim, wanting to be positive, sent me a card that said, “Congratulations, babe, on the birth of our daughter.” I knew that the card was an expression of his love, and I really appreciated it, but I just knew that it was wrong. Still, I never prayed for a girl—I didn’t believe in messing with fate—I just prayed that I would be happy either way.
When I delivered Austin in August of 2002, I felt joy as I held my little darling tight. I wanted no baby other than him. But I will never forget the look on Tim’s face when he saw that brown-haired little boy. I think that for a moment he was afraid that I would be disappointed. But he quickly realized that I was more than just okay. Nevertheless, later that day he said to me, “Let’s go to China.”
We had talked about adopting a baby girl from China when we first married back in 1991, and I loved that he wanted to continue to expand our family.
Early on in our marriage, Tim would tell me the story of our future deaf daughter, saying that she would look and act exactly like me. “She’ll be blonde with two pigtails, wear a red dress and black shoes, and carry a black purse,” he’d say, grinning. “And she’ll have a strong personality. She’ll think that she runs the house! She’ll be classy, smart, and stylish.” He also said that she’d look just like the Coppertone baby from the television commercial—the little girl who looks back while a cute puppy pulls at her bathing suit, revealing her adorable, little white butt.
I laughed and I believed him, not only because he was describing my reason for being, but also because I was always so blown away by Tim’s ability to tell stories—they were always so graphic, visual, and funny. I’ve always been fascinated by ASL and, in particular, Tim’s ASL, how he just paints a picture. It’s similar to when a hearing person reads a story to a child and the tone of their voice just captures them. Tim made our future daughter seem so real, so alive, that I could practically reach out and touch her.
When Blake was born in 1997, Tim was beside himself with joy. I was sitting in the hospital bed still exhausted from giving birth, and Tim was sitting in the chair next to me. The nurse did the BAER hearing test to check Blake’s hearing right in the room when he was born, and he passed instantly. She jumped for joy, while Tim, my mother, and I just stared at her. Looking back, I think that she had never been in that situation before and realized that she might have made us feel a little uncomfortable because when she left the room, she never came back.
Having a hearing child, now that was news. I was thrilled for Blake. I wanted him to have the world at his fingertips. But had he been born deaf, I would have been just fine with it. But I thought that Tim was going to faint—not because he was upset that Blake was hearing but from the shock of it.
For Tim, finding out that his child was hearing was probably just as shocking as when hearing parents find out that their child is deaf. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been such a surprise. The genetic counselor we saw when we first started dating told us that we had a 50 percent chance of having hearing children, so Tim knew that there was a definite possibility. Even though he had many hearing friends by then, including some of his best friends, I think that growing up in a family that was so steeped in Deaf Culture and in the Deaf community made the situation impossible for him to even imagine. It just did not compute. And there was little Blake all wrapped up in his hospital blanket, the first hearing child born into his family in well over a century.
For a split second, he wondered how on earth he’d raise a hearing child who would go to public school. He worried how he would communicate with Blake’s hearing friends because he wouldn’t be able to talk with them. What would happen at Blake’s birthday parties since Blake’s friends and their parents wouldn’t know how to sign? These were all just passing thoughts—gone in a few seconds. After he was over the initial shock, the adjustment felt on par with having to buy blue clothes and trucks instead of pink clothes and dolls. Blake would just have to learn how to sign.
Tim had to make some changes, however, now that we had a hearing child. For example, he had to learn the correct volume for electronics. I remember once before when a few of his hearing friends had come over to watch a baseball game, they told him that he’d turned the volume on the television up so high that it made the entire house shake. Living with deaf people his whole life, he had no reason to be aware of the intricacies of sound. He would turn on the car radio and sort of dance to the beat, only to find out from a hearing friend that he was dancing to a talk show.
When each of the kids was born, we turned on the television for audio stimulation and also played mood music on a boom box to help them fall asleep. My family gave us Beethoven, Mozart, and country music CDs, and told us to turn the volume on the boom box up to five. I, too, needed to be reminded about when I made noise—whether it was turning on the television, closing the cabinets, or with my voice, even—and to be quieter. I had forgotten.
* * *
TIM HAD CHARMED me with our deaf daughter story for years. After Blake wa
s born, he stopped telling it. We were just so busy with our lives, and even though each pregnancy brought another opportunity to have a daughter, it wasn’t until I was pregnant with Austin, that Tim, being so sure that I was carrying a girl, brought her up again.
Two months after Austin’s birth, we registered with Great Wall China Adoption, an international adoption agency in Austin, Texas, where we’d lived for eight years prior to moving to Sioux Falls. Adopting a deaf infant girl seemed impossible, as there aren’t any adoption agencies that help you find one. Most deaf babies available for adoption are toddlers, and with three children aged five, three, and one, we thought that an infant would most easily blend in.
We had the perfect plan—we’d go to China when Austin was two, giving us plenty of time to prepare for our fourth child. We would take the trip with my close friend Ann Marie and her husband, Jon. She and I had met back in 1988 at the Miss Deaf America pageant. She was Miss Deaf Minnesota and the first runner-up at the pageant.
The first time I met Ann Marie, I was sitting in a restaurant with Angie and our two chaperones. Ann Marie and her chaperone were sitting in the booth right behind us. We all ended up sitting together and having a great time. Ann Marie was beautiful, tall, and slender with brown, wavy hair. She was oral but signed fluently like me. Years later, after becoming one of my best friends, she was always giving me guff about winning the crown, saying that I’d won because I’d slept with the judges. “Yeah, you’re right,” I shot back. “I was smart enough to do that!”
