Dear Ian,
You’re 7 years old. You can hear now, but you don’t know that you will become deaf this year, and that will change your life. You will face many challenges in the first year but you will overcome them.
When you first become deaf, you will be confused and devastated. It will take a while before you will be confident about it. It’s hard to believe now, but there will come a time when nothing about it will bother you anymore. However, before that happens you will have to deal with a lot of challenges. Gee, that sounds like fun, doesn’t it? A lot of challenges, yippee!
First, beware of those bullies! Not only will they make fun of you for being deaf but they will also break one of your hearing aids. That will be painful; you will be miserable for a long time. The bullying will make it even harder to adjust to your new reality of being deaf. Because you are even more insecure and sensitive about your deafness you are really uncomfortable talking about it. But your friends and your parents will be patient and they will support you. The hate for those boys will consume you, but trust me when I tell you that you will soon realize how pathetic they are.
Now… this will sound tacky. You don’t know it yet but you ARE an amazing kid. In Middle School, you will decide you want to become a physicist, and that’s pretty impressive but not surprising because you have always been fascinated with the study of matter, energy, force and the Periodic Table of Elements. While now you are trying to be invisible in class, you will soon change: you will be active and ask questions and teachers will love it. You are ambitious and will realize that going to a great college is important so you study very hard and always do your homework. You are eager for information and you truly enjoy learning.
Now, about your dream of being in the NBA someday… Well… That might soon fade away… You have always hated being the short kid and really wish you could be taller. Well, I can’t give you much hope here - you will feel the same way for a while and at 12, you will still be short! Sorry, dude. Short + Basketball doesn’t always = NBA Superstar.
You have fears… you are afraid of tight spaces; you are claustrophobic. Because of this, you can't go camping in a tent when all your friends invite you. You are also afraid of heights, which means you hate flying but you will overcome this one.
It might be difficult to believe this now, since you think that becoming deaf is the end of the world, but you will come to accept this new “you” and your new life. Just remember, “Sometimes the best thing you can do is not think, not wonder, not imagine, not obsess. Just breathe and have faith that everything will work out for the best.” You will always believe anything is possible as long as you have faith.
I'll see you in 5 years.
Take care,
Ian