Heard in a silent world
Thursday, February 10th, 2011
One of the really neat things about the Alpha course at my church is that they serve dinner before they start. Really good food too. Tonight, I found a seat next to James and his sign language interpreter, Maggie. Dinner started off a tad uncomfortable, mainly because I’m a pretty chatty person. You see, the more I talked, the less Maggie got to eat, because she’d be too busy signing my words over to James.
They asked me what I did for a living, and I told them. And I mentioned that I had plans to one day do a book reading for the deaf. I told them about Jonah, my new friend whose life’s dream is to one day be a full time sign language interpreter. He is the one helping me out with this book reading project.
A flash of serendipitous delight ran across Maggie’s face at the mention of Jonah’s name.
“Wait,” she interrupted. “Is the title of your book Fuel?”
I told her it was.
And she broke it to me that word of my book had reached their community. I think the three of us shared a “to think we’d all one day be sitting at the same table” moment. I was asked a laundry list of questions about my being a novelist. Maggie’s food got colder by the minute.
Midway through the night, I realised that I’d been complaining about being lonely on my journey as a writer. I compared that to James losing his hearing. To be cut off from the world the way he is… now, that is loneliness.
So quit whining JC. And for once in your life, be happy that your words have fallen on deaf ears. You’ve made yourself a friend. A darn good one.
