Coran's Ears, Chapter 2

Chapter One

Click here to read the beginning of the story.

Chapter Two

"Oh, Celeste, it was a wonderful day. I am so glad I could be a part of it!"

Viney hired a friend to drive Coran, his mommy Nicole, and herself to the Jamaican Christian School for the Deaf that morning. They left Hamilton Mountain at 6 am. They drove down the mountain to Ocho Rios, around the island to Montego Bay, and back up the mountain to the school. Coran tested for implants and passed the test administered by the audiologists.

He returned home with one hearing aid. (I don't know why only one.) His mommy received instructions on how to care for it and how to help him differentiate sounds.

I asked Viney if it was obvious that he heard something with it on. She said, "Oh, yes!!" She said he was "adaptable." She said he did everything asked of him with his ever-present smile.

Plans were made for him to return in July for grade placement at the school and to begin the fall term in September.

Viney: There is a fee for the school. It is about $6,000 per term.
Me: (gulping, eyes bulging) Is a term one year?
Viney: No, a term is four months.
Me: (panting) So, there are 2 terms in a year?
Viney: No, three. (Listen with a Jamaican accent, and you'll hear her say "tree" instead of "three.")
Me: (calculating, blinking uncontrollably, struggling to breathe, trying to think of something coherent to say) . . .
Viney: . . . Jamaican dollars.
Me: SIXTY American dollars?!?! Two hundred dollars a year?!?! WE CAN DO THAT!!!!

I posted this information on my Facebook page. My friends responded with "Who do I make the check out to?" and "Where do I send the money?"

Of course, more than $200 was needed initially. It turned out tuition and fees were closer to $200 for the first term and $100 for the other terms. Viney had to hire a driver to take him on the 3-hour mountainous trip, and she would have to hire him a few times a year. School supplies and uniforms and tennis shoes and undies and sheets and towels and a suitcase needed to be purchased and shipped to Jamaica.

Fifty dollar checks and $100 checks were mailed to my house or sneaked into my hand at church.

Enough money came in to have leftover to open an account for him. I asked my friend Vicki to co-sign the account with me and be treasurer of his money. She is a CPA, so she is better at counting pennies. Mostly, I wanted to keep my hands off the money to avoid any appearance of wrongdoing.

But that is detail.

Fourteen-year-old Coran began 1st grade at Jamaican School for the Deaf on September 2, 2014.

I asked Viney if he cried when his mommy left him. She said, "NO! He smiled and showed her his bed!"

Amazing.

I emailed the principal and asked for an update when she had a minute.

09/11/2014

Hello Celeste,

Good to hear from you.  Coran has settled in really well and he has already found a best friend. He is learning to sign and using it too.....that is a great step.  I am sure that he will soak this up and his communication will improve rapidly.

Feel free to email us anytime to get an update.

Here are a few pictures.

Blessings,

Dian

12/11/2014

Hi Celeste,

Great to hear from you. Coran did pretty well this term. He went home today for the holidays. He was happy to go home, he missed home. He still has his beautiful smile and he has a group of friends, they are so brotherly. They hugged when he was leaving today, it was so sweet to see.

He did exams last week but reports won't be ready until next year when he returns to school. I will send you a copy of his progress report.

I will let you know if he is need of anything. Yes, his fee is about $60, also he has to pay approximately $28 for boarding for the term. Viney keeps up to date and I spoke with her recently.

Thank you for spearheading his right to an education, he will learn and we will prepare him as best as we can so he can become an upstanding independent and productive individual.

Take care and blessings for the holiday,

Dian

I wanted to shower him in Christmas gifts, but he has three younger siblings and lots of new friends. Somehow, that didn't seem appropriate, especially not knowing Jamaican Christmas customs. (I need to find out his birthday!)

He will return on January 7, 2015 for his second term.

Coran can stay at JCSD until he is 18 or 19. His American friends will do their part to keep him there. Hopefully, he will one day need a passport for a trip to Vanderbilt for cochlear implants.

More to come . . . .

My Aubie Christmas Card Story

It’s been 10 years. My feelings have somewhat recovered, and my embarrassment has abated a bit. I love a good story, even if it’s at my own expense, so I’ll tell you exactly what happened.

Back in 2004, one of our local boys was a Friend of Aubie at Auburn University. One Saturday that summer, Aubie came to our church. An orange and blue backdrop with orange and blue balloons was set up in the gym for folks to pose for pictures. Everyone passed around their cameras. Aubie signed AUtographs.

It was an AUsome afternoon.

It was an AUsome year to send an Auburn Christmas card, too. The Tigers went undefeated that fall. We received several cards with pictures taken on that same summer day with “Merry Christmas” and "War Eagle" expressed in a variety of ways.

Never one to leave well enough alone, I wanted to add a Bible verse to our cute picture which expressed my family’s love for Auburn—and Jesus, of course. I chose Isaiah 40:31: Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will sore on wings like eagles.

I marveled at my cleverness and creativity.

Every Christmas, I hand write the addresses on the envelopes. Every Christmas, Chuck asks, “Don’t you want me to print labels for you?” Every Christmas, I say, “No, thanks. I like to see the names of the people that I love.”

“I could print them out in minutes. It takes you days to address them all.”

“It’s okay. I like to touch the names of the people that I love. I like to think about each one before I mail them.”

“I don’t mind.”

“IT’S MY FAVORITE THING ABOUT CHRISTMAS, OKAY?!?!”

So, Chuck printed the cards for me--but not the labels! I stuffed and sealed and stamped each envelope. (I do like a return-address label, because writing my own address over and over would be boring and laborious, not to mention time-consuming and tedious.) I put them in the mail and marked them off my list.

A couple of days later, I saw Melissa. We grew up in church together. Our parents were friends. Her daddy called me Queenie. He said I was the queen of the Kings. Melissa is three years younger than I am, so she doesn’t remember life without me. She and I have each buried both of our parents. We each lost the first one quickly and unexpectedly, and we lost the other slowly and agonizingly. We have born each other’s burdens as we walked rocky roads. Therefore, we have earned the right to say to (or about) each other whatever we want. (That’s why I’ll tell you that she is not “on” Facebook, but she stalks it through one of her sisters’ accounts every day.)

ANYWAY, when Melissa saw me, she grinned wickedly and asked, “Celeste, how do you spell soar?”

Sucker punch.

Oh.

My.

Gosh.

I knew IMMEDIATELY what she meant and what I had done.

They will sore on wings like eagles.

I had printed it on my adorable Christmas card and sent it out to 200 of my closest friends all over the South and to beloved Yankee cousins in New York.

My people delighted in my oversight. I heard about my goof quite a bit for quite a while. (FYI, never give Bama fans a reason to gloat over you.)

I licked my wounds and stayed out of public for most of the year. (I’M KIDDING!! But I didn’t even know to rejoice that there was no social media. Thank you, Jesus.)

The following year, my friend NancyBorland (That's not a typo. That’s her name: NancyBorland.) told me to dress up my kids as shepherds and misspell Luke 2:9. I didn’t go to that extreme (besides the girls were middle schoolers and never would have agreed), but I did have a cute pic from vacation that would work.

It wasn’t our main Christmas card. I asked Chuck to print just a couple of dozen (“Don’t you want me to print labels?”) . . .

. . . and I only cent it to my friends with a since of humor.

In the Meantime

Read a good book. Go to the library and check out a hard-backed copy. Smell the pages. Listen to the plastic covering crinkle.

Read The Good Book. Start with James, and don’t skip over the part about the tongue.

Drive in the country. Walk in the park.

Rock a baby.

Sing “Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog.”

Suck the juice out of an orange, then peel back the rind and devour the guts of it.

Call your oldest relative. Or better yet, visit her. Look at her fading pictures. Listen to her same old stories. Ask her to tell you about your mama.

Bake some cookies. Eat some dough.

Make a list.

Scratch a dog.

Fold the towels. Load the dishwasher.

Wander around an old cemetery. Find the person who lived the longest. And the briefest.

Catch a patch of sunshine. Feel it warm on your skin. Close your eyes.

Pick some flowers. Pull some weeds.

Paint your toenails (or at least clip them).

Write a thank-you note.

Take a long, hot bath.

Pour cold, iced tea into a jelly glass. Sip it in the bathtub.

Hold hands.

Fry some bacon in an iron skillet.

Poke around a junk shop.

Watch The Andy Griffith Show, preferably an episode with Ernest T. Bass. (“I’m a little mean, but I make up for it by being REAL healthy!”)

Buy a new coloring book and a fresh box of Crayola crayons, not cheap ones.

Pray without ceasing.

Count your blessings.