"MMMMMMMMaaaaaammmaaaaa!!!!"
I immediately jump to my feet and sprint to Brooklyn's room where the blood curdling screams continue.
"Mama, Mama" and I touch her face and immediately my hands become wet from the steady flow of tears that are spewing from her eyes under the high pressure of emotion. "Cut my TV back on, cut it on, I can't see! Where's my pillow? Help me Mama," as the sobbing continues.
With the darkness filling my eyes, I pat around the area until I can feel her hands. I place them on top of mine and make a breaking motion as if I were snapping a stick, and she immediately quietens to a calmer fret. This was the only way I could tell her the lights were out when my voice couldn't be heard. I went into the kitchen where my husband meets me. "What are you looking for?"
"A light!" I said with frustration when it seemed so obvious. He told me that his dad (who works for AL Power) claims that the electricity could be out all night due to the four power poles that had snapped under tenacious winds that howled thru the pastures, over the roof tops and deep into the core of all living animals that were desperately seeking a shield from the freezing blast.
He handed me a cold steel flashlight which I took back into my deaf child's room, who couldn't hear me tell her everything will be okay. I could feel my warm breath meet the cool air of our seventy five year old farm house. The desperate clicking from the rarely used gas heater spilled through the rooms as my husband tried to give us warmth, only audible by the two adults. I calmed my child who eventually fell back into somber when the battery operated light illuminated her room.
I retrieved the hand made quilts from the children's great grandmother and put one over each cub and I went back to bed. We slept until I was sure that the sunrise was in the near future, and I then heated water on the stove for my morning coffee. The power returned to us just after dawn and order was restored to the Blakely home. Sometimes when the ears don't work, and vision in impaired, a black out can lead to an all out freak out!
5 comments:
I used to totally freak out when I was younger when i used to wake up in the night after there was a powercut. My dad used to take me downstairs with a torch and put my hearing aids on me and make sure i could understand and see him, he used to keep me downstairs till the lights came back on or till it got lighter outside.
Hugs to Your family, merry christmas!
awww U gotta love a black out! Although pitch darkness aint exactly the best thing for a deaf person! We lit candles and it was all spooky but I loved it it was a serene scene with the candles in pitch darkness!
i would freak out in pitch darkness though! If i had my implant on and i could at least hear someone i would be ok but if not it would be totally freak me out!!
Oh, bless. It must be so frightening when you can't hear and then the lights go out! Makes you want to invest in some of those glow-worm toys!
yep amen over here to Val. A even now, will freak out if he wakes up and it is totally dark. It is quite funny in the very rare power outages here, one of us grabs a torch and bolts up stairs to make sure there is light in case he wakes up.
Val, I have been totally out of touch on the blogs for over a month and am only now catching up.
I have tears streaming down my face. I can't believe what Gage has been going through. What a tough little guy!
And what an amazing mom/teacher you are. I am seriously in awe.
Thank you for sharing these details. You're an inspiration.
On a lighter note...
After a blackout, I found nightlights that plug into an outlet to charge and turn on when the power is cut. Kind of like the floodlights you see in stairwells, but in mini.
So, when the power goes out, the backup nightlight kicks in and Toes never knows the difference. E-mail me if you need a link.
I'll be following along on how things are going for Gage.
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