Back in 2009, Tim took my words to heart, “Go for it, Tim, so that you can go beyond what’s holding you back here at LSD (Louisiana School for the Deaf) where he had worked the past fifteen years in various positions, the latest being the Residential Team Leader of the High School Dorm. He applied for the position of Dean of Students position where he met all the qualifications, but got passed over, according to one of the inner circle members of the student life department, that he cannot communicate via the telephone. Hello? We are living in the days where everyone virtually communicates via text, email, and videophone. We got the VRS as well. If this is the truth, according to that person’s statement, then that’s flat-out stupidity right there holding company with bigotry, racism, sexism, etc . . . in its coat of audism.
Thus, on May 13, 2011, Tim, my husband, graduated with a Master’s in Mental Heath Counseling from Gallaudet University, and I’m so damnest proud of him. He made huge sacrifices in leaving the security of his job, relocating us to Washington, DC, and saw very little of us while immersing himself in the studies, and from January 2011 until May 1, 2011, was over in San Diego doing his graduate internship with the DCS agency so the only way we could see him was via videophone courtesy of Gmail video call because his rental did not have the videophone such as provided by Sorenson. Every night, if humanly possible, we managed to call each other, my Central Standard Time to his Pacific Standard Time, and he’d bid our daughters good night after playing games with them such as fishing where he’d cast out an imaginary fishing rod and Izabelia would hook her little index finger and hook herself, then would wiggle as Tim slowly “reeled” her in, and if her “hook” plopped out of her mouth, then Tim would “stagger back as if he has lost the fish on the reel line.” Then they would switch places, with her being the fisherman and Tim being the fish.
With Lucrezia, her daddy would just tell her little bedtime stories, making up creatures familiar and strange, and would have Lucrezia melt down into guffaws and blowing kisses at him.
The day Tim came home was the happiest day, and our daughters were the first to run up to him and throw themselves at their daddy, and they hugged and laughed. We cried tears of happiness that he’s simply home for good now that his graduate studies are done.
But – bad news – we were broke and there was no possible way we could make the trip out to Washington, D.C. so Tim could participate in the ceremony. It made me sick to my stomach because as the only living witness to his hard work, beside our daughter, I saw how much he put in hours, how much he sacrificed a lot of things so that he could create a better future for all of us, only to find himself at the end unable to walk the walk up to the stage and accept the diploma was a bitter pill to swallow. It simply cannot be, but it was looking that way. On Wednesday, after his video conference with his classmates and professors, the most wonderful miracle occurred. From family on both sides, came graduation gift money, and we were able to go, after all.
The catch is, the hooding and awards ceremony was the next day, in less than 24 hours. Could we really make it? It’d literally be a push to the pedal all the way to DC, through the night, taking turns at the wheel while our babies slept in the back seat. So off we went, in the night, and we arrived at 2:30 pm, switching our dirty clothes for clean dress clothes in the rest area an hour out of DC and arrived just in time for him to get his place in the line for the hooding which was due at 3:15 pm. Whew!
Thank you, family, for making this possible for Tim to see it through to the finish line.
