I'll Scream Later (No Series) Read Online Free Page B

Matlins, and that several of the Matlin women were hard of hearing and one was profoundly Deaf. But it always seemed a story born more out of desperation than reality—one that my mom wanted to believe—but no records were ever found. To my knowledge, I am the only person in my family who is Deaf.
    Just this past summer I wanted to try to better understand the possible causes for my deafness and I turned to Dr. Patricia Scherer, who is founder and president of the International Center on Deafness and the Arts in Northbrook, Illinois, and was an innovator at Northwestern University for years before that. She and the center have been so instrumental in my life, and she probably knows more about my history than anyone else, having known and worked with me since I was a small child.
    As she recalls, about ten years ago a Chicago doctor who was doing pioneering work with cochlear implants approached her wondering if I might consider one.
    “When he asked, I said I honestly don’t know,” said Dr. Scherer. “Part of me was thinking that Marlee would be a good candidate, but another part of me was saying, ‘I don’t think she would want that.’ But I told him her mother was still living in the area, so he got in touch with her.”
    At a meeting with the doctor and Dr. Scherer, my mother brought all my old audiograms, as well as X-rays of my inner ear from soon after the initial diagnosis. After reviewing the files, the doctor said the X-rays and audiograms indicated that I had a genetically malformed cochlea. That meant that I could likely hear when I was born, but that my hearing would recede over the first couple of years of my life.
    Around that time I was giving a speech in the Chicago area, and during the question-and-answer session afterward, someone asked me where I stood on cochlear implants, an extremely divisive issue in the Deaf community. I said that I wasn’t opposed to them, but that they were not for me. When my mother heard that, she never broached the idea with me or talked to me about the X-rays.
    In some ways it doesn’t matter because it won’t change anything, it won’t change who I am. But it would be nice to get the facts straightened out, just for my own sense of sanity. I’m not so much angry as curious. I want to be able to tell my children about my life and where I came from—why, how, what, and who I am—so that they can tell their children.
    When I talked to Dr. Scherer last summer, she took me to a room they have at the Center on Deafness and the Arts, where I started acting. It had all the various displays of the body so you can see how everything works, including an ear with all of its intricate pieces identified. She walked me through an explanation of what likely happened—from the initial malformation of the cochlea to how it would cause me to progressively lose my hearing as a child.
    And so at forty-two, I think I finally learned how I lost my hearing. But what I realized is that all that really matters is that this is the life I’ve been given, with all its many aspects. I am proud to be a Deaf person and wouldn’t know life any other way. Yet, I have never wanted my deafness to define me as a person, or as an actress. I am many, many things, and only one of them is Deaf, and I’m at peace with that. But it wasn’t always so.

5
    N INETEEN SEVENTY WAS a significant year for me—it could have been the end of everything; instead it became the beginning.
    Most summers we had a college student come and stay with us, essentially as a summer nanny. The program was designed to give students who’d grown up in rural areas exposure to the city. This year, our summer girl was a University of Michigan student named Jean.
    One day Jean was driving me and my brother Marc in a convertible with the top down. We were headed somewhere none of us can remember anymore. She made a left turn right into the path of an oncoming car, which slammed into us. My brother Eric was at a friend’s house