A BIG Thank YOU

To my grandmother, otherwise known as
Baba. If it wasn't for her, I don't think my life
would've turned out as well as it did. She saved
me when I was 15 years old, miserable kid with
no self-esteem from years of bullying at my
old hearing school. At the end of 8th grade,
after being ganged up once again and
attacked by tormenters I was ready to drop
out of school. But Baba, like Wonderwoman
saved the day! She found out about a Deaf
School for me to apply to in Washington, D.C.
to complete my high school years.

Since then my life has been 1 blessing after
another once I truly joined the Deaf World.
I made tons of friends, got involved in
theater (I had been previously involved but
not to the extent I was in hs), also involved with
student newspaper and being a peer
advisor. At Gally I remained involved with
theater, the school paper and was even
a RA.

I worked at Deaf-based jobs such as MSD,
FSF etc etc back in MD. Then a
deaf friend of mine told me about
a program in NYC to get my masters
in teaching ASL as a foreign language.
Once again I moved and was welcomed by
some old deaf friends and made many new
ones. All of my teaching jobs have been
referred to me by other deAfies or CODAs
or signers.

All of the good times, all of my good luck,
wonderful friends etc etc, I owe to Baba!
I know deep down inside if it wasn't for
the Deaf World, I probably never would've
amounted to anything, or lived anywhere
else. I would've been as desolate as an
adult as I was a child. So Baba, I thank
you from depth of my soul for making all
of this possible. For helping me escape
a wretched existence. Not from my home
life but my life outside the home. I thank
my lucky stars the daily despair I woke up
to as a child, is all but a bad memory.

When I read about the Columbine
shootings back in the 90s, before it
became a norm. I immediately knew
the kid had gone through what I had,
years of mental, verbal and sometimes
physical abuse. No I never had the
urge to go shoot up a school, to be
honest I was too beaten down to be
that mad. But its the kids who like
me victimized for years at a time,
hating what they saw in the mirror,
thinking the worst of themselves
who later become adults with more
compassion than they know what to
do with. I feel my experiences made
me such an empathetic person today.
Its made me very sensitive of the moods
of the people I care about. I guess its
true what they say, adversity only makes
you stronger!