(Ch. 51 of my storyblog of my journey into Deafhood…)

The days passed slowly. I waited with hope and fear. Would Brent actually call? Would I see him again? Was ours just a chance meeting that would pass away as quickly as it had come? On the third day after we had parted, true to his word, Brent called. My heart was racing! My 12 year old cousin took the call since I was not able to hear on the phone. It was so frustrating not being able to talk with him myself. She was saying a lot of “uh-huh’s” but she was not telling me what he was saying. I begged her to put Brent on hold and fill me in.

“He wants to know if he can come over tonight,” she said excitedly. I twirled around in circles, holding my flushed cheeks in both hands and said, “Yes! Yes!” My cousin handed the phone to me while I said a quick hello and used my own voice to give Brent the address and directions. Then I handed the phone back to my cousin who confirmed that Brent was to meet me here around 8pm. After we hung up, I danced and flew around the house for 15 minutes while my cousins let out belly laughs!

When my aunt came home, I went over the phone call with her, and she was happy to have Brent come over to visit. We had discussed this possibility earlier. Auntie and my cousins had a fun time watching me pick out something to wear and they helped me fix my hair. I think they were as excited as I was! I put on some light make up and some soft musk perfume from Auntie’s Avon samples.

During dinner, Auntie made plans for her and her children to occupy themselves in the back room with games and TV while Brent and I visited undisturbed in the living room. My cousin’s grumbled at these plans, as the prospect of watching Brent and I drool and slobber all over each other was definitely much more interesting than some old cartoon. But my aunt understood our desire for privacy and was very supportive. To help them feel less excluded, I played some games with my cousins after dinner and let them know they were still very important to me. The games helped to pass the time, but did little to calm my nerves.

Brent arrived at the door a little before 8pm. He looked so sweet. His dark hair was washed and shiny and hung loosely at his shoulders. He wore tan shorts, a striped Izod shirt and a pair of Burkenstock sandals. He greeted everyone politely, paying special attention to my little cousins first, which won us all over. He chatted with all of us for a while before he and I headed out to the back yard for some privacy. My aunt was unable to get my cousins to leave the living room, but fortunately, she was able to keep them from pressing their noses onto the windows to watch.

We sat in some lawn chairs under the leaves of a large maple tree and talked about the places Brent and his family had gone after they left Fresno Dome. We laughed about the Swimming Hole adventures and remembered our first conversations around the flickering flashlights.

Then Brent shifted a little in his chair. He leaned forward with his arms on his knees, cocked his head to the side and looked sweetly at me through his long bangs. He told me he had been thinking about me, non-stop, since we met, and that he had written something he would like me to read. My heart crept to my throat in anticipation as he handed me what was to be the first love letter of hundreds more to come.

“LaRonda, I want to thank you so very much for your friendliness. It makes me feel extremely good and it is so refreshing to experience sincerity and openness in someone so quickly. God bless you, LaRonda. You are a very special person. I feel tremendously fortunate in knowing you and hope to get to know you much better. You are definitely a blessing in my life.

I remember seeing how beautiful you were in the forest admiring the flowers. I was so touched by the scene. It just amazes me that you are so…gentle and content with the nature around you. You possess a marvelous quality of compassion. It exudes out of your every move… This may sound crazy, but I’m falling in love with you! This excites me and terrifies me at the same time… any situation that I deem romantically potential, I get all tense and far off. I fear rejection.”

My heart was pounding, my face felt flushed and my mind was reeling! I looked up at him and found him fiddling with his fingernails while one of his knees bounced nervously. I stopped reading for a moment and told him that I was very moved by his letter. I told him I was impressed that he had the courage to write his feelings down and share them so intimately with me. Then I smiled and touched his arm to his great relief. This seemed to relax him and he sat back in his chair and blushed while I silently continued to read. His eyes were fixed on my every expression.

“It is weird, but I have been thinking a lot about you these past few days. I say it is weird because….here I am, 19 years old, and I am infatuated with a woman I have only begun to know. Don’t get me wrong! I understand why I feel the way I do. I just find it rather intriguing that it all happened so quickly in my mind. I hope this doesn’t frighten you. I am truly sorry if it does, but I want to be honest with you since that was what came so easy when I was with you.

Well, I guess it’s time to hear your views, so I will cut this short. I find you a fascinating person. I truly believe we can become very good friends. I look forward to it.

Thank you. (And though it can be a sticky word to use),

Love, Brent”

It all happened so quickly — the curious uplifting, the incredulous wonder, the sudden inexplicable joy! I guess when the “real thing” happens, there is no doubt. What was happening, was happening to both of us. We had fallen in love!

I reached out to Brent, took his hand in mine, that gentle hand that would learn sign language one day just for me. I looked deeply into his eyes and told him my feelings were very much the same. I also looked forward to getting to one another better. Brent smiled and breathed a sigh of relief.

It was quite warm outside, so I invited Brent inside for some iced tea. He followed me in the house and we sat and talked with my aunt and cousins for a while before my aunt corralled her children into the back rooms, much to their disappointment, to give Brent and I more privacy. (God bless my Auntie.)

Brent and I talked to each other well into the night. He took care to speak clearly and repeat himself when I wasn’t able to follow. He even reverted to finger-spelling again when needed. In fact, he had been brushing up on it since we last parted. While lip-reading is usually not very fun, I LOVED having to look at Brent to lip-read. It gave me the excuse to gaze deeply upon the face of this man who had stolen my heart!

At each exchange, there grew a rising pleasure of mutual discovery. As trust seemed to form quickly between us, we found ourselves sharing stories of past loves, broken hearts, and some of our most vulnerable personal moments. There were tears shared in the night. Tears of compassion over the heartache we had each experienced from lengthy teenage romances that had eventually ended; Tears of anger and grief at the illness that took away my hearing; Tears of awe at the openness, integrity and beauty of one another. Brent was unashamed to shed tears and show emotion, and because of this, I felt myself falling deeply in love with him. I knew he was a sensitive soul — the kind of man I wanted to be with forever.

We became a couple from that moment on.

(Footnote: You have been reading the “chick-flick” chapters in my summer storyblog entitled: My Journey Into Deafhood, which tells of the first recognition of my deafness and waking up to a world of silence. It also tells of how I grieved, coped, adapted and then thrived as I learned to embrace my Deaf self. Thank you for reading! The final installment will show on August 8th, 2007. More coming soon…)

Posted by LaRonda on Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 4:30 am.