Immeasurable Love
I have been called unique pretty often by those who know me. I am the proud son of two deaf parents. So many people I have met seem to be astounded of the probability of a perfectly hearing person born to two deaf parents. Not a week of my life goes by that I am not questioned about this abnormality. Whether it has been, “How did you learn to talk?” or, “How did you learn sign language?” there are always questions about my life with deaf parents. Although I may not know the answers to every inquiry, there is one question to which I will always know the answer. I know why I have become the person that I am proud to be: it is of my parents’ wholehearted promise to allow me the opportunity to grow into a hard working, honest, driven, and successful individual.
I attribute an enormous amount of my inner drive to attain academic success to my parents. Each of my parents have led extraordinary lives in which they have had experiences that are quite different from most hearing people and that I consider to be far more significant. They both grew up in deaf-only schools in North Carolina where constant discipline and a drive to learn was the normal expectation. My parents have overcome obstacles to which many hearing people have cannot relate. To say that having deaf parents hasn’t been a daily struggle would make me liar, but it has been a positive struggle that has made me the goal-oriented person that I am today. My parents have set themselves apart from most with their own pledge to make every opportunity to further my scholarly success available to me. I scarcely have the words to express my appreciation for their commitment to develop a hardworking, studious, and persevering son devoted to attaining any academic achievement in life. I know I get these traits directly from them.
My parents have encouraged my personal development by not only encouraging me to be committed to academics but to athletics as well. They have invested large amounts of their time and money to allow me to take part in sports that have enriched my childhood. My parents knew how imperative it was for me to enjoy my childhood and experience unforgettable memories with my teammates. They also knew that athletics would help to ensure a positive lifestyle away from detrimental peer pressures, to develop a healthy sense of competitiveness, and to instill in me good sportsmanship. For eight years, my parents have sacrificed time and money to attend tournaments across the southeast with the team, sharing the same hotel with them, going out to eat with them and following the team’s plans. They have also always been there to support me during my entire high school career. My parents dedicated much of their time and effort to watch me play at every single game of my senior year. Each time I stepped onto the field to play, I knew I could look to the stands and see my mom and dad. Because of this, my coach has regarded my parents as some of the most avid fans of the soccer team, and because of their relentless support, I consider them the most ardent, loving parents there are.
My father has come from different walks of life. He has served as a Deaf professional for fifteen years with the State of North Carolina and two years with the Communication Service for the Deaf as an advocate, counselor, administrator, and specialist in Deaf and Interpreter Services. He also served as President and other offices with North Carolina Association of the Deaf for four terms (eight years). As for past nine years, he has been a faculty member of Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, North Carolina as an ASL and Interpreter Education professor. He is now serving his second term as the State President of North Carolina American Sign Language Teachers’ Association. He is revered by his peers and colleagues within the Deaf Community, and his leadership has had a great impact on countless people. Taking notice of his accomplishments continues to teach me valuable lessons of hard work, fealty, and integrity that have profoundly influenced my life and have helped shape me as an appreciative and upstanding CODA. Along with my father, my mother has also had an emphatic impact on the development of my character by the way she has lived. She is currently employed as Loan Services Specialist with Wells Fargo and often diligently works overtime to provide for our family. She has made it apparent to me that everyone goes through difficult times in life, that only you can pick yourself up, and that you should maintain an optimistic attitude no matter what.
My parents have been role models not only for me, but also for my friends. I hear nearly as much praise of my parents as questions about them. It is blatantly obvious not only to myself, but also to others that my parents have a genuine love for life, and that I owe a great deal of the life that I have to them. They have played a huge role in my recent achievement of a goal I set many years ago: to attend UNC-Chapel Hill. They have inspired me to set goals for my future such as, to partake in campus service programs and Christian clubs at the University, to participate in an intramural/club soccer team at the University and compete all four years, to earn a degree in the field of Medicine, and to pursue a career in Sports Medicine and/or Orthopedics at the University that I will be attending. My parents have been my mentors, stern disciplinarians and role models for my life. Their immeasurable love makes me confident that I will be able to achieve the goals I have set and attain a life full of happiness and gratitude.
