My name is Mary. I did that wrong. That's OK. I'm learning. I'm learning slowly how to do sign.
It's about learning and how important it is to learn each new stage in our life. We experience new learning experiences and being open to those learning experiences and believing that no matter how old we are and what our station in life is we have new opportunities to learn. And the people in our lives influence that. So, when I first moved into the seniors lodge I met a lady who was both deaf and mute. And I so dearly wanted to communicate with this lady. I wanted to learn how to communicate with her. And that led to my desire to learn how to sign and communicate with her better. It's been a slow go this learning for me but it's been good and it's opened a whole new relationship with not only my friend but also with others around me, the people that I've taken the course with so that whole learning experience around. Learning how to do sign has been really a blessing to me. I think back about the children also who are just learning. Their first experience of learning in school. And some of my memories are painful ones. Memories that left me with a sense that I couldn't learn. That I was there was something wrong like I wasn't able to learn. I was slower I guess. Over the years of learning in my life I've learned that slow is okay. Slow is good. And as long as I keep learning new things. Violet taught me that. To be open to learning how to communicate with her. Has been an awesome experience for me. And how much I'll use sign? I don't know. But I do know that it's opened doors for me. This one small learning experience learning how to do American Sign Language and the basic sign language that Violet uses and how to make that work. To communicate the affection we have for each other has been awesome. And I'm so thankful for the instructors and the course and just having the opportunity to learn this new thing in my life at 79 years old.
