Don’t Take Your Senses For Granted

When I was 13, I was so damn mean

Running away, had nothing more to say

Than I hate you

But that's not true now

I just don't, I just don't know how to say

I'm sorry mom and dad

I know I messed up bad

I should've, should've done, should've done better

I'm sorry mom and dad

For all the time I had

To get my life, to get my life together

But I didn't

To My Parents - Anna Clendening

A Loss for Words is a novel that is based off of real life experience. This novel was written from the perspective of our author, Lou Ann Walker. Lou Ann Walker is a New York editor who grew up in Indiana, has two sisters and has a mom and dad. A typical family dynamic except for one thing, both of Walker’s parents are deaf, but her and her sisters are not.

This story has three different parts to it; Watching, Listening, and Learning. There are no set number of chapters per part, but each part has their own story, which as a reader was intriguing. You can guess what each part is about, but the good thing is there are surprises. Each part within itself, Walker makes sure to mention her life and how it was growing up with deaf parents, how this impacted her sister’s lives as well, and also how it effected her parents’ lives.

“Two ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. I can only hope that I’ve imparted something of what it is to be them. I started out writing about my parents. I learned a tremendous amount about life. And I ended up finding out about myself.” In the prologue, Walker says this beautiful line and it shows just how much love and admiration she has for her parents despite the struggles she talks about. It was a great end to the introduction and a great way to start her story.

Walker begins with telling readers about how her mom and dad became deaf. Walker’s mom, Doris, became deaf due to having spinal meningitis during infancy and Walker’s dad, Gale, became deaf after having a fever at around three months old. Walker continues her story with how her parents met. Both Doris and Gale struggled in their family as being deaf children. Their family struggled as well with having deaf children, so both Doris and Gale were sent to the Indiana School for Deaf. The school mainly teaches their students how to live life reading people’s lips and they discourage the use of sign language, which I found quite interesting, but much to the schools dismay, the students still taught themselves sign language. Doris and Gale met in 1950 where they were set up on a date by their friends, which then turned into love at first sight. Gale proposed to Doris at the Indy 500 race and then they moved into a home in Montpelier, Indiana where they had Lou Ann in 1952 and then had their two other daughters, Kay and Jan, soon after.

Walker highlights how even though she is not deaf, she struggled with deafness by association throughout her whole life. When Walker was young, she took the responsibility of helping her parents navigate the world outside their own bubble. Walker learned how to sign at a very young age, not even to help communicate with her parents, but for her parents to help communicate to the outside world, through her. Walker was the person to call doctor’s and make appointments for her parents, she had to proof read their letters, had to handle their family financials, as well as many other things. Among handling things for her parents, she was also the brunt of all the disrespect and injustice the outside world had against deaf people, which hurt her in more ways than one.

Walker emphasizes that even though she had to take on this responsibility, her parents still felt guilt asking her to do certain things and taking her away from her childhood. But with that being said, Walker came to realize that she performed her duties willingly, “but I had blinders on—which is just as well, because once I left home and started sifting through all that had happened, I began realizing how impossible things had been for Mom and Dad, how hard things still were and how hard they would always be.” Walker does make it known throughout the book that with those struggles came understanding and acceptance.

Walker’s story continues with talks about not just her parents life, but hers as well. We learn that Walker went to Ball State to study as a teacher in deaf education, then transfers to Harvard to study literature. After graduation, Walker ends up working for a magazine and also to earn some extra money, she becomes a deaf interpreter. As a reader, this is interesting because knowing the struggles of being a deaf interpreter for her parents her whole life, it would make sense that she would take this on as a job because she has done it before, but also with the unhappiness it caused her, it shocked me a little bit. I understand needing to make money and of course doing something you already know and excel at, but at what expense to your mental health? While doing this job though she witnesses a lot more injustice in court rooms, and other professional atmospheres, which makes her reflect on her own life. Walker comes to a strong realization that she doesn’t know who she is without deafness attaching itself to her. Not that she is ashamed of her family or where she came from, but she has always been her parents crutch, she has been that guardian figure to her two younger sisters, she has never really found out who she is as a person, and it is something she drops everything to do, which I commend her for in more ways than one.

It is scary not knowing who you are, but it is even scarier when you realize that the person who you thought you were, isn’t who you truly are. Walker stops interpreting and goes through a phase where everything from her childhood starts to shine through. It is an experience that Walker needed to go through, but after going home for her grandfather’s funeral and her sister’s wedding, Walker learns more about herself there than she ever did away from home. Walker comes to terms with her learning about who she is as an adult while trying to still be there for her family.

For this book I chose the song To My Parents by Anna Clendening. The lyrics to this particular song go so well with this book because in the book Walker tries so hard to help her parents in any way she can, but she gets so tied up with having a sort of responsibility for her whole family while also trying to live her own life as a young child, a teenager, and an adult herself that she cannot find herself along the way. The lyrics are so explicit in Walker’s feelings because she explains as if she got so frustrated sometimes with her new found responsibility that was placed on her shoulders, she took it out a lot on her family. Now that she is an adult and understands, it hurts her because she is so sorry for her actions. As you listen to the song more, the lyrics go on to apologize to the parents for not doing better as well as apologizing for not getting her life together. I am unsure if Walker ever used those words with her parents, but I know that within this story, Walker shared feelings of sorrow and guilt due to her attitude growing up and coming to realize the struggles going on in the rest of her family’s life, not just her own.

Before you even start reading the book, there is a quote that Walker starts with, “Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves,” Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This particular quote is quite beautiful and makes so much sense after you finish this story. I assume this is the reason why Walker chose this particular quote, but let’s break it down in my own interpretation. When you read the quote and think about it literally, you are reading something along the lines that if you feel one of your senses then the sounds will fill in the blanks, or at least that is how I read it. I have always heard people say that your senses are a lot stronger than you realize. If you lose one of your senses, whether it is temporary or permanent, one or more of your other senses goes into overdrive. Each sense tries to compensate when you are without one or more. It is something that taken literally explains the reasoning behind this quote. Now with me looking at it because I finished this book, I look at it as step out of your own shoes, the first part of the quote specifically. You as a person are one sense, but other people can represent other senses. Now personally I have all of my senses and they work rather well, but because I do not know what it is like to lose one of my senses, I need to get out of my own world and try and put into perspective how life can be like for others who have lost a sense. Which brings me to the end of the quote, so once you step out of your own world and try to understand the lives of others, your sounds will take care of themselves. You will start to understand their lives and their struggles without prejudice attached to it.

I rated A Loss For Words a 4 out of 5 strictly because of writing style. The story kept me interested, which is key in my mind, and the learning style is what made me want to come back and read more. I only say the writing style is what brought the rating down because the way Walker chose to write the sentences was a way I wouldn’t. That doesn’t make Walker’s way wrong or bad, absolutely not, but the way that I read and comprehend a story can majorly depend on how a story was written. With that being said, I love the development of Walker as a person and the raw sides of the story she chose to tell. Walker could have chosen to exclude multiple aspects of hers and her family’s lives, but she included them anyway. Walker goes in so much depth with all her emotions surrounding responsibility at a young age and finding yourself as an adult and it is something so broken that readers can relate to.

A heart felt story that speaks volumes is something difficult to write. Walker does a great job with emphasizing her love for her family while also the trauma her life caused her. I choose to believe that Walker told this story to try and stop the stigma of deaf individuals and to stop the prejudice and rudeness that often comes with people who are different. It was a raw and appealing story to read and also intriguing to learn.