The last week of the first summer session was upon us. Emily was testy from the stress of final exam week. The students were nervous about the upcoming finals. And I was being pulled in two by both my nerves regarding my final and from trying to help keep Emily's stress level minimized.
Jane was there, as well, trying to keep us all glued together. She was basically at Emily's beck and call. I was glad of it. It meant less stress for me and I was able to get in some studying. But I felt badly that I couldn't be of more help to Emily. By this time she knew I'd do anything she asked of me if it meant making life easier for her. Jane seemed to be the same way. Though Jane tended to keep me on edge most of the time, I'd come to respect her. Her friendship and support of Emily was something that really made me appreciate and come to understand just how loyal and special Jane is.
I know in the past I have complained about Jane and maybe rightfully so. She is hard. She is very intense. But Jane is also passionate. It was Jane who had come to stand between Emily and Jack after he hit Emily. She looked him square in the eye and dared him to go through her to get to Emily. I hadn't known that was how it happened that day until Emily told me after she tried to find Jack. Jane fights hard for what she believes in. She fights hard to make us, the students of American Sign Language, firmly grasp and learn her language correctly. I have to respect that even if it does drive me insane from time to time.
Jane is this wisp of a woman. She might stand five feet 2 inches in heels on a good day. When I first came here I assumed Jane was in her late 30's. She gives off this impression of being young but I've come to find out that she's older than Emily. She just doesn't seem to show her age. I guess she wasn't a sun worshiper in her youth. Then again with her very fair complexion, chestnut brown hair and green-eyes she probably couldn't be in the sun without getting a rip-roaring sunburn.
There is a story I wish to share about Jane. She told us this during her presentation to our class the day after the memorial to Emily's Angel. This story is very detailed because in Deaf Culture description and detail are very important. It's one of the unique aspects of Deaf Culture that you won't find in other Cultures.
Jane was born the youngest of 5 children and the 4th daughter of Irish Immigrants who landed in New York harbor. Her father, Sean Patrick O'Shea, was born Killarney, County Kerry, Ireland. Her mother, Kathleen Kerrigan Sheenan, was born also in County Kerry but in the country. They married in Ireland but were poor. They decided to try their luck in the United States and immigrated in 1942.
Of the four older O'Shea children, Bridget Ellen, the oldest was born in Killarney. Mary Kathleen was born shortly after Sean, Katty and Bridget landed in New York Harbor. James Patrick followed a year later and then Kerry Eileen was born in 1945. As far as Sean and Katty where concerned they were done in the baby making business when in 1953 little Jane Frances entered their lives. The family dotted on her. Katty immediately thought something wasn't right with little Jane. No one believed her. They thought Jane was just shy when she still was not trying to make sounds by 2 years of age. Finally, Katty took Jane to a doctor who gave her what to her was devastating news, little Jane couldn't hear.
Jane was fitted with a body aid and sent to the Clarke School for the Deaf in Massachusetts, which is an Oral school. She learned to talk there though she didn't have much in the way of hearing even with her Hearing Aid. By the time Jane was 10 what little hearing she had started out with was gone. Hearing aids no longer amplified her meager residual hearing and Jane was left in a world of silence again for the first time in more than 6 years. It was at that time that she left the Clarke School and went to the New York School for the Deaf also known as Fanwood in White Plains. It was at Fanwood that she learned ASL, as it was not allowed at Clarke. Students at Clarke were forbidden from using ASL even in their dorms.
At Fanwood the shy Jane blossomed and became outgoing and precocious. She finally had found a place and a world into which she felt she belonged. She no longer was the struggling wallflower that she had been at Clarke. She came out of her shell and grew angry at what she'd been through in being forced to learn spoken language. It was then that she vowed to only use ASL to communicate. Sean and Katty were not happy that the first 6 years of Jane's education were wasted but they soon found that her irrepressible nature that came to the surface after her transfer to Fanwood was worth the loss of spoken language. Katty and Sean and Jane's older siblings soon learned enough ASL and home sign that they didn't even notice the loss of spoken word.
All of Jane's siblings were out on their own by the time Jane enter High School. Bridget, Mary and James were married and had headed west to Illinois and Missouri. Only Kerry remained in New York while she went to college with aspirations of being a teacher. Jane was closest to Kerry even though there was an eight-year age difference between them. Kerry learned Sign Language and decided that she wanted to be a teacher for the Deaf because of Jane. It was Kerry who made Jane feel she could do anything she wanted and inspired Jane to want to be a teacher as well.
When Jane graduated from Fanwood Kerry was not in the audience. Kerry had married when Jane was 16. When Kerry had her first child the doctors discovered she had cancer. Kerry died three weeks after Jane's high school graduation. Jane was devastated but followed in her sister's footsteps. It was for Kerry that she enrolled in Gallaudet University in Washington D.C. and got a BS in Deaf Education.
It was while at Gallaudet that Jane met her future husband, Henry Wellington. They married soon after graduation. He took her first to Washington State and then to Louisiana before heading back east and settling near the Clarke School in Massachusetts. Somewhere along the line they decided to adopt. First came Micah James from South Korea. He was 1 years old when they adopted him. Then there was Elizabeth Kerrigan from China. She was 6 months old and came to them only 5 months after Micah entered their lives. One year later Rebecca Kathleen entered their family also from South Korea. She was 3 months old. Then there was Diana Bridget who came from Russia when she was one. She came one year after Becky. Becky and Diana were only 4 months apart in age. And finally there came Patrick Sean Henry from Columbia, South America as a 5 month old. He arrived 1 year after Diana.
Unfortunately, not long after Patrick became a member of their family Jane and Henry's marriage went sour. They'd had their ups and downs over the years but had always managed to survive. Maybe adding one more child to their family had been too much maybe not but within a year of Patrick's arrival Jane and Henry were divorced. This left Jane to raise 5 children less than six years of age.
When Micah was four and not long before Patrick came to them, Henry and Jane had moved back to New York near Sean and Katty. It was during that same time that Jane got an MS in Education. While gaining this degree she had met Emily Wesson, who also was getting a MS in Education. They became fast friends. After graduating both moved on with their lives but agreed to keep in touch. Jane was surprised when a year later she received a letter from Emily asking her to put in her application to become a teacher at Wolf Lake Community College. The job was for an associate professor teaching ASL to college students wanting to obtain a degree in ASL interpreting. Jane jumped at the chance and was hired. So within 2 years time she'd adopted her 5th child, got a Master's degree, got divorced and moved with five kids to another state where the only person she knew at the time was her college buddy who was heading the ASL program for Wolf Lake. She's now been teaching at Wolf Lake nine years.
I'm not sure how Jane had managed to keep her family going without a husband to support her during those early years of teaching at Wolf Lake. I can't imagine having 5 kids in less than 6 years and getting done all that Jane seemed to have done. After hearing her story I had this desire to give her a T-shirt with Super Woman embossed on it! Some how Jane had persevered through every obstacle that was thrown at her. I'm sure that knowing Kerry was looking down at her and rooting her on helped. And I'm sure Sean and Katty's support meant a lot too but Jane had managed to do something in keeping her family together and making their lives work that a lot of hearing women can't seem to do on their own.
After her presentation I went to talk to Jane, which is always a risky proposition since she will not let me fingerspell. I wanted to tell her how inspirational her story was to me. It was then that I learned that Sean Patrick O'Shea had passed away earlier in the school year and Katty was now living with Jane and her tribe. Katty is 81 and just a tad bit confused. But she adores her grandchildren and delights them with stories of Ireland. Most of the time she forgets how to sign and the children must rely on lip-reading but they love their Grandmum just the same.
It is also Jane who has clarified what exactly is discussed in the Deaf World. I hope you remember my saying Emily had taught me these euphemisms for menstruation and slips showing. She had told me these things when I asked about secrets and body language. I thought she had said Deaf women don't discuss these things openly thus the use of euphemisms. It had me confused because I'd been to a Deaf chat were anything and everything was discussed so I didn't understand why such secrecy about just certain things when others such as homosexuality, and sex were discussed openly among strangers in this Deaf chat room. Jane has since shed a very bright light on this conflict.
About three weeks ago, Julie Van Allstein, Clarissa Dinkins, Charlotta Hernandez, Carol Pringle and I were in the student lounge gossiping. Jane came in to get a soft drink since the lounge is where the pop machine is. Somehow we got discussing descriptive classifiers. This is a topic that we learned about in ASL 2 class. Descriptive classifiers are how deaf people distinguish people from each other. They will described height, body features, body size, clothing, hair color and style and so on so that the person they are talking to gets a mental image of the person that they are being described.
Jane started discussing this with us. I asked what the sign for dwarf was since I am technically one. She showed me the sign for midget that Micah showed her that the students use in the High School. But she didn't know the sign for dwarf. I said dwarfs and midgets are the same. She didn't realize this and was surprised. So I told her about the criteria for Little People of America. I also talked about the fact that there are over 200 conditions that make up what is considered dwarfism. For the first time ever Jane actually seemed somewhat interested in what I had to say. I still apologized for talking so much. I tend to go overboard with my knowledge.
Next she asked when I stopped growing. I said when I was 11. Then she asked me another question. The sign she used looked like the normal sign for menstruation. I was like there is no way she'd be using that sign. That's one of those taboo topics. So I said I didn't understand. She thought for a second and then made the sign for month meaning monthly. I was going, oh my gawd, she is asking when I started having periods. I answered her. At that point everyone else started discussing when they started menstruating. From there we moved on to some saying they hoped menopause would find them soon because they are sick of having periods. Jane signed the old wives tale about if you start periods early, you will go through menopause late. I said that this saying was a wives tale and it has more to do with your family history. If your mother stops late then you more than likely will too. Jane said to this that her mother stopped having periods in her late 30's but that she still had them herself so what I said didn't hold true for her.
To say the least it was an eye opening conversation. I was so surprised that she asked me point blank about menstruating. I couldn't fathom that was her question since I thought it wasn't discussed even among women friends in the Deaf Culture. Here I was thinking this topic is not discussable and here Jane is asking me when I started. Then she proceeds to tell the five of us students, sitting leisurely in the student lounge, that she doesn't really know from Adam that she still has a period at 50. This to me would be very personal information and not discussed with mere acquaintances. The whole conversation was just mind boggling because of my preconceived ideas.
Later, after I stopped scratching my head in wonder, I hunted Jane down and told her I was quiet surprised by the conversation we'd had in the lounge. I explained why I was surprised. She laughed at my naivety before she explained that it's only teenage girls who get flustered by discussing periods and use the euphemism. So now that question and conflict is resolved. And I know more about Jane than I ever dreamed I'd know. It's bad enough I know intimate details about Emily's life but now I know about Jane, too. Oh, I guess it's fair play since Jane knows my menstrual history, as well. Ha Ha!
I was in the computer lab when someone tapped my shoulder. I turned expecting to see Jane or Emily since they are who normally bother with taps. Instead there stood Eunice Phillips. I'd forgotten just how much I really didn't like her until she was standing directly in front of me. "Hi!"
"Hi, yourself. What have you been up to?" she asked looking down her nose at me.
"Just trying to survive summer school. What brings you here? Second summer session doesn't start for 2 weeks," I replied looking up at her from my uncomfortable chair.
"Oh, I came to find out if I had any books I needed to order. I made an appointment to see Emily."
"Why do you need to see Emily to find out if we have a book to order? We do but Sally could tell you that."
"I want to know what classes I should take in the fall."
"Oh, I see."
"I'd better go. She's expecting me," Eunice said turning on her heels and sashaying from the room.
About thirty minutes later she again was tapping me on the shoulder, "So how'd it go?" I asked.
"It went fine, "Is there something to know about Emily?"
"Not that I'm aware of," I replied with my stomach in my throat.
Eunice looked around to see if anyone was paying attention to her beside myself but we were the only ones in the lab. "I may be an old fool but I swear the woman is knocked up."
"What gives you that idea?"
"I've been a student of human nature all my life. I notice things. Emily Wesson is at least 3 months pregnant. She's wearing a loose fitting shirt in 90-degree weather that last year she'd not have touched. It is so not her style. Her face is fuller. Her bust line is bigger. Her hair is dull and not as shiny and looks thinner. Her stomach is rounded but she's lost 10 or 15lbs. She also from time to time will brush her hand over her stomach like she's trying to shield it from harm or make sure it's still there."
I tried to steady myself and not give away anything that would be a confirmation of Eunice's accusation. "Well, nothing has been said to me."
"Don't give me that. You two were thick as thieves by the end of the school year. You know what is happening. Why the secrecy?"
"Eunice, it's not my place to tell what is going on. If you think Emily's pregnant then ask her not me."
"Fine, I'll do just that," she answered in a huff and went back towards Emily's office. I stayed where I was and saw no more of Eunice that day.
Later I went to Emily's office, "Hi,"
"What?" she signed with a smile.
"I know Eunice dropped in. How'd that go?"
"She wanted to know what I thought she should take next semester. I told her."
"Did she come back here later?"
"Yes, she asked if I'm pregnant. I told her the truth but asked her not to tell anyone for now."
"This is Eunice we are talking about. She can't keep something like that under her hat for more than 5 minutes," I replied nervously.
"What was I supposed to do? Everyone will know. It's just a matter of time. If I lied and said I wasn't and then 2 weeks from now tell everyone I am she will think I was only keeping it from her. She knows that you and I are friends. She would have felt slighted and possible gotten mad. If she became upset then she might do something to make things difficult here. What's the saying "Keep friends close and enemies closer." As long as Eunice thinks she's my friend then she will keep my secret."
"I hope you're right."
"I hope so too," Emily replied with a worried smile.