You Don’t Know Everything Jilly P!

To Karina’s right, a woman in a black long-sleeve shirt signs everything Karina says. This is the first time I’ve seen so much signing in person, and when I’m not staring at Derek, my eyes are on her. Derek and the other two Deaf kids aren’t even looking her way the whole time, but her hands keep going. At first, I try to make sense of what she’s signing since I just heard it, but she moves her hands so fast that I can’t make out a single word. I think maybe she has extra fingers. I wonder if I’ll be able to sign like that someday, if I practice enough.

Finally Karina is done with the last slide. “Now, I’d like to focus on our special guests. The Hoyt-Cunninghams, Knights, and the Johnsons have all taken time out of their busy lives to be with us here today, so let’s give them a round of applause.”

She lifts her hands into the air and shakes them. A few people in the audience follow along. The rest of us clap the way we’re used to.

Karina reminds us that Deaf people don’t hear the sound clapping makes. “See, if I move my hands like this–” She brings her hands together to clap but doesn’t let them touch.
“Pretty boring, huh?” She shrugs.

“But how about this?” She holds up her arms, with her hands in front of her face, and shakes her wrists so that her fingers wiggle about. “Much more interesting to the eye, no? For now, let’s try it again, and welcome our guests.”

Karina waves her hands in the air again and this time we all join in. Derek perks up as if he just noticed us. He signs hi several times, with alternating hands. We laugh and Derek plays it up, tapping the teenager to his right on her shoulder and pointing at us as if to let her know we’re here. She acts all surprised and then starts waving.
————-
“One thing I’ve been wondering,” Mom asks, “is what’s it like in public. Out in the world. Do people stare when you’re signing?”

“They do sometimes,” Mrs. Knight says. “And it used to bother me. A lot.” She closes her eyes for a moment, preparing her thoughts. “For years and years, it did. I left places early, and sometimes I didn’t go at all. Sometimes I stared right back.”

Derek nods proudly at that.

“And then one day I was walking around with Janet. She’s my middle child, and she was just a toddler and she yelled out something in the store. I don’t even remember what she said, but a dozen people turned around to look at her, then, of course, up at me. And that’s the moment l realized folks are going to judge me and mine no matter what we do. And sometimes people are going to look at us funny when we sign. So does it bother me? A bit, I suppose. But we’ve got a child to raise, and we can’t let other people’s issues get in the way of us living our lives and loving him.”