Both Li and I were stunned. Professor Clark had always taken a special interest in Sophie and she had always admired him. Her response seemed completely out of character. Had she reached a point where she resented the cochlear implant altogether? Were the deaf world and her boyfriend influencing her thinking about deaf people living in the hearing world? Our influence as her parents didn’t count for much any more, it seemed. I felt she was rejecting me as her mother.
In the end Li went ahead and wrote the foreword, including Sophie’s journey. I tried to forget about it, but wondered why Sophie had reacted so strongly against doing this.
Our regular phone conversations began to change, too. They used to be weekly, but now Sophie might not call for a couple of weeks and then only for a quick hello. I was anxious to see her in person soon.
The next time she visited, I did try – I really did. But I was so dismayed when I saw that she’d dyed the bottom portion of her beautiful jet-black hair bright purple that I simply said, ‘Darling, you should cut your hair to here,’ and put my two fingers, like a pair of scissors, just above the point of her purple hair. ‘You will look nice with shorter hair.’ Not exactly subtle!
‘Mum, get over it,’ she snapped, and rolled her eyes.
Snappy was becoming Sophie’s default position. During dinner that Saturday night, Li told her that one of Queensland Ballet’s chosen charities for 2015 was Dimity Dornan’s Hear and Say centre. As a family we had been very impressed with what Hear and Say had achieved and all the deaf children they’d helped over the years with the auditory-oral approach.
‘Dad, this is not a deaf charity I would support,’ Sophie countered quite forcefully. ‘If you have to have a deaf charity, please let me choose it for you.’
‘What do you mean?’ Li asked, taken aback.
‘Speaking and hearing is not the only solution for deaf people. There is nothing wrong with deaf people signing. I just would have chosen a different charity,’ she replied.
‘Of course there is nothing wrong with signing, but it’s better to have both options,’ I said.
‘You’re not listening to me!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re not deaf but I am, so this will reflect back on me! Try to understand where I am coming from.’
‘Well, this is a charity that Queensland Ballet has chosen to support. I thought you would be happy about it,’ Li said.
I felt desperately bad about this, so sorry and sad for Sophie, and incredibly guilty, too. I’d hung on to the hope that signing would open up the deaf world to her in addition to the hearing world but, as I feared, we were clearly heading the other way, judging from another argument we had just before dinner another night.
‘Would you bother to learn Auslan so we could sign as a family?’ she asked. ‘It would mean a lot to me if only you would try to make a little effort. Is this too much to ask?’
I was stunned by this request, speechless.
‘Sophie, it’s so good that you can sign,’ I started, ‘but you know that’s not the real world. Everyone speaks and hears and that’s what I have wanted for you. Sophie, we are fine for you to learn Auslan and you have learned it so quickly, but why do you want to subject us to learning it if we can communicate well now? Also, we would be very limited at signing compared to you.’
God. On reflection, what I said sounded like none of us could be bothered to learn. No wonder she reacted the way she did.
‘Mum, all I ever wanted was for my family and close friends to meet me halfway!’ she said vehemently. ‘I’ve worked so hard all my life to fit in to the hearing world, despite the difficulties. And I’ve never complained, have I? I know you meant well, but you have no idea just how tough it is!’
She paused, clearly struggling to hold back tears with what she was going to say next: ‘You were there every time I broke down.’
‘Sophie, I do understand how difficult it is for you,’ I replied. ‘But it’s tough for us as well. This is your reality. It would be great if everyone could sign, but that’s not—’
She cut me off, getting more agitated. ‘If I can learn to speak, why can’t you learn to sign? That’s all I ask, Mum! Just meet me halfway! Is that too much to ask?’
She continued with a softer tone: ‘Mum, you talk so much and so loud that you don’t even know if you would be able to actually sign without your voice on at the same time.’
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Eventually I said in a dejected voice, ‘Yeah, probably not,’ and we both burst out laughing. Sophie had said what she needed to say and then cleverly defused the situation. But her anger and frustration surprised and worried me. Our daughter was changing, and I was frightened.
Later I told Li that I felt like we were slowly losing our daughter. ‘Please tell me that’s not happening,’ I said.
‘Mary, this may be the next stage of Sophie’s delayed emotional development that she never had through her teenage years,’ he said reassuringly. ‘She’s got to reject her parents at some stage. Didn’t Louise say that?’
I thought about the times Louise had explained to me how profoundly deaf children rebel when they become young adults and try to figure out where they belong, how often they feel they are neither hearing nor deaf. I hadn’t thought this would be a scenario for Sophie as I had been so close to her and felt she had been successful. Inside, I wasn’t sure what to think or how to make sense of it any more. I thought my heart might break.
‘Mary, everything you’ve ever done for Sophie has been out of love,’ Li offered. ‘Sophie knows that. But it has been relentless for her for a very long time. She is trying to work out what her future holds.’
‘But she’s twenty-five, Li! Surely she should be over this “reject-your-parents” phase by now.’
‘Remember her social and emotional development has been delayed. You have to think of her still in that adolescent phase where she’s sorting out who she is.’
‘I know, I know. But God, it’s hard having her down in Melbourne with all these other influences.’
‘We must trust her, Mary. Have faith in Sophie, and just for a little while, take a step back. Let her find her own way for a bit.’
I knew Li’s words made sense, but they were so very hard to hear.
It was a comfort to know that Tom was in Melbourne as well. He had returned after travelling in Europe and working in China. He was quite fluent in Chinese and full of travel stories. He was determined to return to China one day, so it was no wonder he decided to return to Melbourne University the following year to study a Master of Teaching in Chinese and English as a Second Language.
It was good to be with Mum that Christmas. Bridie had gone to a host family in Montpellier, France, to learn French, but Sophie and Tom joined us and had fun with their cousins. Coralie was always happiest sitting back listening to our many overlapping conversations. Everyone looked after her, making sure she had a comfy chair in the thick of things and a glass of champagne or Scotch in her hand. We had given up on presents years ago as there were simply too many of us, and were just happy to relax together.
Sophie’s boyfriend, Matthew, arrived from Melbourne after Boxing Day. He and Sophie planned to celebrate New Year’s Eve with deaf friends at the Gold Coast. I thought he was a very nice man, and it was good to see how much he cared for Sophie. He made an effort to get to know us. By his speech, I could see that he’d had some hearing before he became deaf so I asked him about this.