Hands of My Father: A Hearing Boy, His Deaf Parents, and the Language of Love

Myron Uhlberg has written a truly beautiful memoir that I enjoyed from start to end. Every page of this wonderful story is a gem. The book is interesting, engaging, funny, and poignant. It is one of those rare treasures that is not only beautiful in its honesty, but valuable in that it changes the reader. I look at my own personal world differently today for having read this book. It is not only about the deaf, but about all of our differences, our similarities, and how to create a common language to share both.

Uhlberg does not romanticize growing up the oldest son of deaf parents, Sarah and Lou, at a time when little cultural effort was made to understand or accommodate the deaf. He speaks frankly and with some shame of the humiliation he felt when others mocked his family, of the resentment for having to do so much more than most little boys have to handle in helping them navigate through the world. But he doesn't cast himself as the hero of a tragedy. The picture he paints is a well-rounded one of parents whose needs were often a challenge, but who offered much in return. Uhlberg seems pretty clear that in spite of the burden of their deafness, his parents themselves were a gift--a gift I thank him for sharing. I read it. I loved it. I am confident others will, too. Uhlberg can indeed speak the language of love--not just the sign language he used to communicate with his deaf parents, but the written language he uses to communicate to his readers. I have not read many memoirs that speak as straight to the heart as this one does. It doesn't rely for emotional appeal on overblown metaphors or flights of fancy, but on honesty and a willingness to share. At heart a love story between Uhlberg and his father Lou (though Sarah is not shirked), it is all the more moving because it is so real...and so very well written. With clear, fluid prose and well-chosen detail, Uhlberg evokes both imagination and emotion. I laughed; I cried; I hated to put it down. One of Lou's greatest fears was the loss of his ability to communicate. His parents, like Sarah's, had never really learned to sign; he never knew them. Gazing on a child in an iron lung, he could not help but think of the horror of being so cut off. His hands, the only thing he had to share himself; how could he make himself known to others without them? I could not help but think while reading this that even so many years after his father's death, Uhlberg is still acting as Lou's translator, still bridging the gap between his parents and the hearing world. He has *become* his father's hands. I suspect Lou Uhlberg would be pleased. I *know* I am.

Myron Uhlberg's has captured in the written word, the same grace, creativity, beauty, passion, dignity and power expressed by Signing. Louis and Sarah Uhlberg were people with a tremendous sense of dignity and self-respect despite the prejudice, fear and ignorance of the hearing world. To be his father's voice was immensely challenging and demanded more of a child than should reasonably be expected. The author does not deny the frustration, embarrassment and overwhelming sense of responsibility that he felt for his parents and younger brother. Neither does he extol them as virtues. He does however recognize the gift that his childhood experience was to him. This book offers insight into the deaf world and the social milieu of the 1930's and 40's. It also would be of value to anyone who works with families of a minority culture attempting to make sense of and be a part of a community that does not speak their language.

I loved Hands of My Father! I devoured it. And I, the woman whose books *never* have so much as a cracked binding, highlighted passages of particular beauty. And there are quite a few passages like that... Born to two deaf parents, American Sign Language was Uhlberg's first language; then, English, spoken and written. As a very young child, he was forced to "translate" the hearing world for his parents. He learned early on that words are often painful but sometimes wonderful. Uhlberg endured a child's shame at seeing his father being treated like a child himself simply because he was deaf. (He translated slurs and hateful words exactly as they were said, because his father demanded it.) Even though his childhood was stunted by having to act as his parents' go-between with the hearing world as well as by having to be responsible for his epileptic younger brother, it's obvious Ulberg was raised with love and concern. Afraid his precious new baby was born deaf, his father went to great lengths to make sure Myron could hear. During the Great Depression, Ulberg slept with a radio always playing beside his bed -- first a "baby" table-top model and then a gigantic Philco aptly described as looking like a cathedral -- because his parents worried that his hearing might waste away if not used. This book is rich with love of all kinds: Mother Sarah's love-through-food and his father's love-through-touch, the boy's love for his father. There's old love and lost love and love of 1940's comic books. In Uhlberg's word, Love, like ASL, is varied and knee-deep in contextual meaning. And somewhere along the way -- after the cathedral radio and before his first library card -- it's obvious that Myron Uhlberg fell in love words. For him "Sign was a beautiful painting, absorbed whole..." whereas his second language "required the brain for translation." This is frankly the best comparison of ASL and English I've ever read. Hands of My Father: A Hearing Boy, His Deaf Parents and the Language of Love is not so much a memoir but a literal love letter. It's a word painting of growing up that should not be missed.