Reactions.

I didn't post this morning, brought Josh to aural rehab and am going to get Matt soon from school.

I was just thinking about people's reactions when they found out Matt was deaf. One family member thought maybe he was autistic first. Someone else said if they had to loose a sense they would want it to be smell, not sound (HUH?). The people at my hubby's work were VERY supportive. We heard several times from them, "If this had to happen to a family, Matt is very lucky to have you guys as parents. He will be fine." How strong a family we were, how smart and Matt would benefit from that (shucks, make a gal blush!). The coworkers even pitched in to help us move that summer when everything seemed to be falling apart. They were great.

Can't say that about most of my friends. All of a sudden they didn't know what to say. People I had known on that tiny post for a while. They thought Matt was too rough, too physical. That was the excuse I heard, but not what I read in their faces. They used to talk to Matt, but fell silent. It was just too strange for them, and all of a sudden we found ourselves w/o good friends. That made us feel double blessed to have good support at Hubby's work, and to be near family in that particular point in our Army life.

I've made some amazing friends since then, but I've never forgotten how it felt to lose friends over my child's deafness. How shallow those friendships must have been! The gals that were my closest friends weren't in the Spouses' club. The gals in the club were nice, but we were never best of friends to start with. It was the ones I was closest to that hurt the most to lose. I would have thought they would understand, be able to speak openly with me. Instead I had to find out from others why they were all of a sudden avoiding me.

One day in the park I was frustrated with Matt. I told my "friend", "It's really hard to get his attention!" I'd have to make sure he was watching me so that he understood what I was telling him. My friend replied something along the lines like, "I know! Do you understand now why we (I guess she was speaking for all the gals) don't know what to say?" My response, "Gee, no. I don't have a clue. I thought you were a friend. A real friend would have talked to me about this by now!" I got Matt and went home. I couldn't believe that I had friends before then that would be so shallow as to leave me hanging when the bottom of my world fell out.

Seriously, I have MUCH better friends now, and have worked hard to make sure Matt is happy with himself just the way he is. That EVERYONE has something about them that makes them different, whether we can see it or not. That even when people are rude we have to treat them with respect, like it or not. I've learned to bite my tongue. And I've appreciated using sign language to talk with my son about someone being rude and why I would be ticked off, WITHOUT that person having a clue what was being said. :)

Okay, enough for now. Time to wake up two perfectly sleeping boys to pick up another at school, groan...