The man with no language

One summer I worked in a Deli at a local grocery, Fishers. As much as I dreaded going, I did enjoy being able to work with the public, well, some of them.

One of my favorite customers was a teacher from high school. She was my ASL teacher, who happens to be Deaf. We signed back and forth as quickly as possible, trying to catch up whenever we ran into each other.

On a separate day a Deaf woman came in with an interpreter. The interpreter left to go grab something and when I signed to the Deaf women her eyes lit up. "You can sign, how?" She asked me with curious eyes. I told her I learned sign in high school, giving her the name of my school. She asked about my current education and I told her that I was going to be a Sophomore at OU. After our little chit-chat she began to leave with her interpreter when she turned around to tell me thanks and that she was impressed by my signing ability. When I got home that night, I was trilled to tell my parents how proud her words had made me.

A few weeks later though, my luck changed. A older man came in alone and as I walked up to greet him I quickly realized he was Deaf. No problem I thought, I've got this. The man began banging on the window and grunting. I looked up and signed to him, "What would you like?" He looked at me, dazed and confused. He once again, stared into the glass counter, banged on it, then grunted. I looked at what was in the counter and began to sign what was inside. The man shook his head, "No, no, no, no." He proceeded by pulling out a well-used piece of paper and a pen. He looked at me, then down at the paper. He scribbled some strange letters, picked it up and put it close to my face. I didn't know what the words made out; they were random: purple, circle, long, ext. and even those weren't spelled right. It was then and there when I realized something. This man had no language. I would sign, write and mouth, "What?" But nothing got through. The old man stared at me with blank blue watery eyes. I was so embarrassed and sad that I wanted to hide. After 30 minutes I had what I thought to be what he wanted. After I weighed the food I put the container on the counter, which held what I thought he wanted. As soon as the container hit the counter he grabbed the it and turned away so fast, I was left alone by the time I said, "Thanks."

A second or two passed when I finally realized what happened. I walked back into the below-freezing meat freezer, something I hated doing because I'm vegetarian and hate the cold. But in my mind I knew that was the only place I could go to bProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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alone. As soon as I got past the doors I sat down and cried. I felt ashamed at myself as I thought of how I might have made this man feel. I was also overwhelmed with sadness, knowing that his lack of communication has caused him to miss out on things because of it.

That day when I went home, I didn't walk in proud. Instead I told my parents of man and how I bad I felt. Although they told me there was nothing I could do, that mans blue and confused eyes will say with me. The experience taught me how no matter what strange language someone may use, it's better than not having one at all.