Stories

Test Turned Testimony

GHA was founded in 1999 by the mother of a son whose meningitis 12 years earlier required a special medicine to save his life. That medicine, however, also often caused the side effect of deafness. And deafness came. And the boy would sit in the middle of the floor and hollar. And that mother would sit down beside her son and hollar with him. Just hollar.

Despite the challenge, though, that mother still had a burning desire to help him be all that he could be. In her quest to help her own son she soon discovered the absence of existing supports for both she and her son. With the understanding that learning what would soon become his primary language was a pivotal key to his success, this mother set out to first identify and “bridge all the gaps” that stood between the her son and opportunity. Her doing so started what is known today as TCI, The Community Interpreters.

This same mother through her vocation as a Family Representative, working with grieving families for jab designs orlando, soon discovered that the information and resources needed to help these families get on their journey to healthy grieving also went lacking in community support and resources. For many years she stood broken as she took notice of the many unresolved grief issues in families, including her own. Through her personalized strategic followup with more than 2000 families, she found that the pain of loosing a loved is much more than many are able to bear, and so we see a vicious cycle of “hurting people that hurt people.” Thus, LAG, a program of GHA, was identified in 2007 as the program to house community supports and opportunities for individuals and families of Central Florida.

Through more than eighteen months of sacrificial travel, studies and working with thousands of parents throughout the state of Florida, this mother, a Parent Education Specialist for the state of Florida PIRC (Parent Information Resource Center), saw time after time that the impact of parent involvement is crystal clear. Children who are encouraged, succeed. Hearing OR Deaf, Black OR White, Rich OR Poor. Young people MUST be taught values such as respect, compassion, hard work, and a love for learning.

Children raised in a home where support, positive discipline, and accountability are present, are MUCH more likely to thrive in the classroom and in life. I am that mother of that 2-year-old child who almost died from meningitis - and 16 years later, you can see the photo above to the left, Reggie enthusiastically graduated from FSDB high school with a STANDARD diploma [not merely a certificate of attendance, as MOST Deaf in Florida do].

NO family is exempt from the challenges of raising healthy, motivated, and engaged kids. No matter who is doing the parenting: mothers, fathers, grandparents, god-parents, step-parents, foster parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, or other adults – parents, communities and schools MUST partner in the quest to help every child succeed.

- Earline E. Blumhagen, founder of GHA

Learn the Language

[Earline: It is VITAL for parents to learn sign language in order to be able to communicate with their Deaf child; siblings and other family members as well should also consider acquiring skills in this area. We know....we raised 2 Deaf children. Sadly, however, even some educators try to minimize communication's importance. Please encourage yourself do what is right, what is vital for the well-being of your child, your relative, your friend. Listen to this witness of a story that is repeated all too often.]:

"I am a Deaf education teacher. We have 17 students. Out of all those parents, none are deaf and only one family signs. The family that signs [belongs to] our only student that is on grade level in all subjects. We have a teacher that works with the family. We offer free sign classes year round. We send home sign dictionaries and signs for words that the students use in class. Still, the parents continue to ignore our pleas to learn how to communicate with their children. It breaks my heart [to hear] some of the things parents have asked me to do, such as 'explain to my daughter why she started bleeding last night.' "

- 9nyfan

The Grief Connection

Funeral services for Deaf people are different from hearing services. My overall impression is how important the role of the person taking the funeral is. Whereas hearing people can bow their heads with grief whilst listening to the words of the service, Deaf people are not able to do this as they are not given any time to grieve because their eyes have to be attentively on the chaplain or interpreter. Therefore their grief is hidden in the same way as their ‘deafness’. I myself experienced this at the funeral of my beloved mother - my grief came later when my eyes were at rest from communicating and I was able to let my grief come to the fore.

At a funeral service of a young man, his wife and son approached to lay a rose each on his coffin just before the committal - after a short time when I went to lead them gently back to their seats I noticed that the young widow was talking quietly to her husband telling him how much she loved him. Here was the proof that Deaf people do grieve as deeply as hearing - grief and pain are part of the process of life.

Rev Vera Hunt, Honorary Chaplain to the Diocesan Council for the Deaf

Operation AfterCare

[Earline] It may be hard for you to feel optimistic about the future right now. If you've lost a spouse, child, family member or friend due to death, you've probably found there are not many people who understand the deep hurt you feel. This can be a confusing time when you feel isolated and have many questions about things you've never faced before. There are Grief Connection groups that meet weekly to help you face these challenges and move toward rebuilding your life without your loved one.

Here's another short (true) story for you to consider] ...

"When my son lost his hearing at the age of 2, I was a young 20 year old mom in a bad relationship. The first thing I thought was, how will he learn if we can't communicate? Will he ever be able to be independent. It was very scary, and lonely. I got him in school as soon as I could. I also started to learn sign language. It was hard, I searched for support. I tried to befriend other parents, to no avail. My son had a friend in school whose parent still hasn't learned sign language 21 years later. She was always saying that she needed to learn sign language, but never did. She always told me that her son was having discipline problems at home. I told her that if she didn't learn sign language, she'd be sorry some day. Today her son is serving 2 life sentences, I wonder what she does when she visits him. Now that's grief."

-mael

Many OTHER LIFE SITUATIONS bring deep grief, such as divorce, failing health issues, estrangement, deafness, the loss of sight, unemployment, homelessness, incarceration, etc. Even if you are struggling with a loss NOT due to a death, then we have Operation AfterCare ... what do you do when you've done all you can? Healing from life is not easy. It's a long, sometimes painful process. We want to help you on your journey to healthy grieving.

Just the Facts
Fact #1 - 90% of all deaf children are born to hearing parents, AND less than 10% of these parents learn sign language well enough to EFFECTIVELY communicate with their child.
Fact #2 - Deafness is a communication problem, NOT a mental problem.
Fact #3 - Less than 3% of Deaf worldwide profess to be Christians.
Fact #4 - We MUST treat the Deaf with respect. [Leviticus 19:14 NLT]
Fact #5 - "Unintentional learning" is almost non-existent with the d/Deaf.