Personal Narrative: My Cookie As A Sign Language

My first words were “cookie” and “more.” With blonde hair reminiscent of blinding bursts of sunlight and pudgy hands that undoubtedly shook with unrestrained excitement, I—or rather, my one year old self—requested that I get another cookie. I did not, however, ask for the delectable treat with simmering wisps of steam rising from it with the faltering voice of a callow toddler. Rather, I asked for that chocolate delicacy with the awkward movement of chubby hands that contorted uncomfortably. My first words were “cookie” and “more” and I asked for them in sign language. My entire life has been performed with an euphonic swish of hands cascading through the air, fingers opening and closing in the apertures of my existence, composing an illustration of the life of Madison Mauro and her moments of “cookie” and “more.” The apparently simple concept of a flick of my fingers, of a turn of my hand, of a simple sign, is far more elaborate in the intangible tangles of my life; deafness and its culture expands into every realm in my life and in every experience. My experiences are snippets in the collage …show more content…
My father, a teacher for the Horace Mann School for the Deaf, chuckles as he casually tacks on the memory of me vacuuming the hallway of the Laurent Clerc School for the Deaf, an integrated charter school that my parents established and I attended in third grade as both a student and involuntary janitor. My sister, a counselor at a group home, diffidently tapes on the memory of her and I volunteering with the Deaf-Blind for Game Night at the Deaf Blind Contact Center. My brother, a student at the University of Tampa, ebulliently smacks on the memory of him and I winning first place for our American Sign Language narrative on the trials of being homeschooled in the Marie Jean Phillips