This year was no exception. Although excited about seeing Josh after four long weeks, the heart-wrenching Cherry incident had kept her awake all night. Grace’s life kaleidoscope had suffered a major shift, the type of dramatic movement like earthquakes that change the Earth’s axis and produce tsunamis. Because of Hannah, Grace felt relatively knowledgeable about the deaf community. And because of Cherry, she realized she didn’t know shit. From her sheltered, protective view of child rearing, she wrongly assumed parents did everything they could for their children, deaf or not: stupid, and naïve. Entire new concepts concerning hearing-impaired children took shape and space in Grace’s mind and they were the size of continents. A gap, a missing link, something, had failed to connect formal education with informal socialization. She couldn’t put her finger on it. I need you Mom, she thought, and wished for the hundredth time she could punch *1 and hear her mother’s familiar voice.
