Well, we have less than a week until Johnny's activation. We are excited and nervous. I don't know how Johnny will react, so it will be interesting to see. I think it might bug him for a while because he is one who doesn't always like change. At the same time, he always adapts very well and quickly.
In my ASL class we watched a movie about two families, one that was Deaf, with deaf children, and one that was hearing with a deaf child. We watched as the two interacted with each other, and in not the most friendly ways. As I was watching it, I wondered what it would have been like to be one of the other students watching the film. For them it was just an interesting movie in class. For me it was real life. My wife and I had gone through all of this, and had to make this decision, and had to wonder if it was the right decision. I think about it all the time. How is Johnny going to feel about his implant when he gets older? Will he appreciate what we were trying to do in giving him as much opportunity as we could? Or will he resent us for forcing an implant on him? The family in the movie who got the implant, the dad said he stood behind his decision 1000 per cent, and called his brother (the dad in the other family) criminal for not doing it to his children. I guess at this point, all I can say is that I hope we made the right decision. I hope Johnny will find a way to live and thrive in both worlds. I hope he will find a way to function in the hearing world, without losing his deaf identity. I hope he comes to appreciate the culture he was born into, one that his mom and I knew nothing about. I hope it all just works out for the best. I just hope, no matter what, he grows up to realize his full potential, that he grows up to be a leader and an example to those around him. That has nothing to do with him being deaf or hearing. It just had to do with him being my son.
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