My oldest daughter has partial deafness in one ear. There are some frequencies that she cannot hear at all. It is very mild, she sees an audiologist and they monitor it. She doesn't need a hearing aid or anything. Her other ear compensates and she does things like sits in the front of the class at school, which helps. It doesn't affect her speech. You would NEVER know. Sometimes if you talk to her and her head is turned she won't hear you and whispers are hard for her to hear. She functions fine though, has never let it bother her.
She's been doing well. She's busy. She got all As and Bs this semester, she is active in the Youth Group and the Joy Club, she hangs out with friends, plays her flute and works about 10 hours a week. She loves her job. She likes her co-workers and bosses and customers. She likes making her own money. I'm proud of her. She's 15 years old and she is killing it. She's not perfect but she is a good, responsible kid. She has a kind, sweet soul.
Yesterday, she played with the band at a festival in the morning, had lunch with a friend and then worked from 1pm-7pm. I drove to the mall at 7, moved to the passenger's seat (she insists on driving everywhere), and waited for her to come out.
When she sat down in the car, she wasn't her usual jovial self. "How was work?" I asked. She told me a story.
"I was on the register and this guy and his girlfriend came up. I couldn't hear him. He was talking really low. So I asked him to repeat his order and he still spoke really quiet and low and I still couldn't understand him. He called me a "Deaf Bitch" and his girlfriend started laughing. So I was just calm and I took the rest of the order and then I told them I would have their food right out and he said, "How do you work here if you can't even hear?""
My heart, at that moment, broke into a million pieces. Here is my 15-year-old child, just doing her job, and some terrible man called her a "Deaf Bitch" to her face. What kind of human being does that? I wanted to find him and break his knee caps.
She continued, "So I excused myself to go to the back and I sobbed. My boss asked what was wrong and I told him and he got really upset. He went to them and told them that he won't tolerate them disrespecting the workers and then he threw them out and banned them for life. I was really sad about it but everyone was like, "Don't worry about them. They look like they smoke meth." It made me feel better. They are like my work family. Then the rest of the time was fine. I'm okay now."
If there is a silver lining, I guess there is that. Those two people were horrible to her. They were mean and belittled her but there are so many more people that had her back, and that makes me happy. Good for her boss too, for telling them off and throwing them out. Honestly, what a king.
We talked about how sometimes people can be mean for no reason and how that is a reflection of their character and not hers. We talked about being brave. I told her I was proud of her.
These life lessons are hard. You want the world to be kind to your children but you cannot control the world. The only thing you can do is help them to be strong. People are going to be mean, they aren't going to always like you, they are going to try to dull your shine but you have to keep your head up and keep shining. I know that she will.
And I'm not worried about that terrible man because karma will take care of that....
