Award-winning author and comedienne Kathy Buckley grew up in a silent world, but she hasn’t let her deafness define who she is. She made a conscious choice to overcome the obstacles in her life path, and forged ahead with tenacity, wit and a limitless spirit. This book review chronicles her incredible experience.You’ve overcome a number of obstacles and faced many challenges in your life. What stands out?
The biggest obstacle in my life was my attitude. I didn’t know how to make choices; I didn’t love myself enough to know I could make better choices for myself. I thought my whole life was wrapped around the labels that had been put on me -- people telling me “You can’t…” or “You’ll never be able to…” And I believed those labels were who I was. I kept looking for love and acceptance from other people, but I couldn’t get something from someone else when I haven’t given it to myself. I finally realized I could create who I am, not have it determined by society. I learned that for people to love and respect me I had to love and respect myself first. The biggest challenge in my life was learning to receive -- and receive unconditionally, without feeling I had to give back right away.
How did you face the challenges of things you couldn’t do because of your deafness?
It’s so frustrating, because it’s not just about my deafness. If I were a mother, I’d never tell my child the things he wouldn’t be able to do. It’s up to each individual what he or she can or cannot do. If you walk into a room full of deaf kids, you shouldn’t expect them all to be the same just because they’re all deaf. Each one looks at deafness in a unique way; they’re each taught about deafness in different ways. We’re all individuals, so to label us as a group -- “deaf people” -- is ridiculous. Each individual person has a gift to give, but people go through life thinking they can’t do it because someone told them so. When we limit a child by telling him what he isn’t able to do, we teach that child to limit himself.
Fortunately for me, I finally realized that if I was deaf, it was for a reason. (Maybe I wasn’t supposed to listen to those people who told me I couldn’t do something!) One day I looked in the mirror and saw what God had created, instead of what society had created, and I liked what God created better.
What’s the story of your being arrested?
I had been in an accident -- a Jeep ran over me as I was lying on beach. I was in a wheelchair and didn’t know how well my body would function again. Then someone told me that fish was brain food. I believed that although my body wasn’t working, if I could just keep my brain alive long enough my body would eventually follow through for me. But I had no money. I was on welfare, living on $100 a month and my rent was $80. So I sewed pockets inside one of my jackets so I could steal cans of tuna so I could have food in my house that would keep my brain alive. That was my belief at 20 years old. I didn’t know any better, so I got busted for stealing tuna.
To this day I have a can of tuna in my house at all times, partly because I’m hungry but mainly to remind me to never let fear conquer me again. There’s an old saying: “Fear knocked on my door. Faith answered it and no one was there.” That can of tuna represents how fearful I was of my body and how fearful I was of starving. I stole because I wanted to stay alive. I didn’t have the courage to ask someone for help because I didn’t love myself enough. Sometimes ego gets in the way of surviving.
What did you think the first time you were able to hear with the help of a hearing aid?
I thought, “Oh, man! You people live in a noisy world!” Everywhere you go there’s music playing -- in an elevator there’s music, in a restaurant there’s music, in the gynecologist’s office there’s music. (I’m thinking, do I get candlelight and dinner with this?) Music is everywhere and it’s as annoying as heck! I wondered if people were afraid of the silence. Now I go to places and take my hearing aid off because I don’t want to hear.
The first time I did hear, it was scary. I put my hearing aid on and walked out of the doctor’s office, and the first thing I heard was the traffic. Then I got in my car and heard a clicking noise and thought how lucky I was to have a hearing aid so I could tell there was something wrong with the car -- until I found out it was just loose coins sliding around in the ashtray.
But the important thing about the gift of hearing wasn’t about sound; it was about an identity. No one explained my hearing loss to me. I didn’t know that I was different from anyone else. When I got my hearing aid, I finally understood what I couldn’t hear. If I’d known that sooner, my world would not have been so shattered or so challenging. For a long time I thought I was retarded -- that’s what my belief was. When I got my hearing aid, I realized how I’d made my life so complicated when it could have been as simple as being able to hear. It was incredible.
You do stand-up comedy. What was your reaction to hearing applause for the first time?
It was overwhelming, not just to be able to hear the applause but because it was a sign of acceptance. It was also strange at first to just stand there and accept the applause, but I learned to love it. And because I keep getting new hearing aids, even to this day I hear certain sounds for the first time; sounds I don’t quite understand because I’d never heard them before. My hearing aid allows my inner child to come out and play. That’s great because she didn’t get to play when I was a little girl. It’s incredible.
What’s your most important advice?
The best thing you can do in life is look at your past; then take all the goodness that’s in the past and keep it with you so you can make peace with the negative. Things happen in life and what you make of it is up to you -- how you learn to forgive and love and respect yourself. The present and the future have a more significant meaning than the past. Your past is a small portion of who you are. Your present is a huge portion of who you make of yourself, and your future is yours to approach. It’s the ultimate gift. If I could leave one message, it would be that you are not alone in this world. God is with you, and you are loved.
I hope you enjoyed this book review of If You Could Hear What I See by Kathy Buckley.
Visit the National Association for the Deaf Web site
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