I could have cried with all my strength but neither my mother nor my father would have been able to hear. They were both deaf and mute

As told to Leah Gebber

I grew up in a silent house.

When I was born my parents installed an alarm system for when I cried — a light would flash beside my mother’s bed waking her up. I could have cried with all my strength but neither my mother nor my father would have been able to hear. They were both deaf and mute.

My mother would make some noises but she could not sing me lullabies. She could not encourage me to make my first sounds: the only indication she had that I was babbling was that I was moving my mouth.

When I was four I was sent to a special preschool where I learned how to sign. I know this but I don’t remember it. My memories of young childhood are patchy. Everything had another gesture: there was a movement for chocolate and cake for example but there were times I didn’t know the correct movement for that word and then I would spell out the word using sign ABCs. I’d also read my parents’ facial expressions. The meaning of their words was affected by the place and direction of their signing so I had to pay attention to that too.

When my brother was born he joined our little signing community but I finally had a playmate with whom I could share words.

We were the only Jews in our neighborhood; we had applied for housing within the community but it took years until our application was accepted. We were an easy target for the neighborhood children. As we passed through the streets they’d shout at us and goad my mother into losing her temper. When that happened she would yell at them unintelligibly. All they heard was strange sounds and a mixture of fear and fascination and cruelty made them taunt us all the more. I would put my head down and rush into the house.

When it’s your life that you’re living you accept it and carry on you don’t really imagine anything different. But I do remember wishing that my parents could hear and speak. Outside the little world that was our home and extended family interactions were cumbersome at best agonizing at worst.

My mother was 38 when she was introduced to my father. My uncle’s brother-in-law was the rav of a shul where my father davened and he introduced my parents to each other. They were so lucky to have found each other — my mother thought she’d never get married. They came from very different backgrounds and their respective families had very different attitudes to their disabilities. My mother was from a large family. Her mother contracted chicken pox during the pregnancy and my mother was born with no hearing at all. Although her family learned basic sign language she often felt locked into a lonely world. I think that had a profound effect — while my father was mellow and accepting my mother was more high-strung.

Although my father was also born with no hearing he was the only boy in a family of three and his mother showered him with love and affection. He was drawn into conversations and made to feel that his thoughts and feelings were important — however they were expressed. His temperament was also gentler and more easygoing than that of my mother and I always felt closest to him. Daddy’s girl.

Although signing was the normal way of communicating with my parents our conversations were quite limited. There was no chatting about my day no small talk. My parents had been cut off from the world so deeply that they found it hard to connect with us on a normal day-to-day level.

Some situations were quite comical. Every Sunday my father drove us to visit family. He drove extremely slowly — around 20 miles per hour. All around cars would honk and irate drivers yelled. But my father couldn’t hear any of it so he continued the journey oblivious. I never said anything to him just let it go.