So a book signing for THE BLACK HEART BOOK and WALKING FREE is coming up...within "WALKING DISTANCE" of my home!! And tempted as I might be to show up in old jeans and a sweatshirt,..I won't. I won't even have my head shaved in honor of the occasion..because this is something that I want to do. Heh! I've even agreed to bake a cinnamon apple pie for the celebration!!

I just wish that Nellie was here for the occasion. I wish that she could sit and sign the front page of HER book. I wish that she could have someone spell into her hands those words,..which have been told to Rosezelle and myself so many times,.."This book has changed my life!! Nellie's story has made me thankful for what I have and not what I don't have."

The knowledge that a young deaf man in a wheelchair is going to be given the opportunity to go to college because of her story...would make my deaf blind friend a very happy woman,..indeed!(And no, these folks deserve their privacy!! That particular incident will never get bandied about!)

Heh! Out there somewhere, I know,..is a person,..who unable to BUY such a life experience,..would busily set about e-mailing folks or telling all of those who would listen,.."This NEVER happened!! This never happened because such a one as myself says that it never happened...because I say that it never happened!!"

Let me tell this individual those individuals,.following such a holding pattern in their own existense,.."Such things as those events in Nellie's life..do happen. Such folk as Nellie and my friend "Ro," wheelchair bound and blessed with three children and two husbands and a succesful and happy life,..do exist. And no amount of money can buy certain life experiences. They must be lived!"

I'd better get off my soapbox!! I just celebrated my twenty fifth wedding anniversary. (I was told that I would be "unable to marry and have a normal life,"..and I was told this when I was a teenager.)

(Sorry,.....Stanelle,..you will never be able to have children!

Score:

.....seven miscarrages

One live birth!

Hoping for grandchildren in a few years!)

I could go on and on with the things that I was told that..."I could not possibly do" and then,.sit back for a giggle cause all of those things have already been done by me in my life time and by other folks around me,..who were given the same life sentence of nothingness.

Five years ago,.in spite of all evidence to the contrary,..a "rehab' person told me very expertly that,.."You could not have done all of the things that you have claimed to have done!!"

My college degrees were sitting right in front of her face as were a slew of newspaper articles about my work with the Deaf and dis-Abled. She ignored all of this evidence to the contrary of what she was saying and insisted that..."You just can't do that sort of.."normal stuff." It is physically and mentally impossible for you to..."accomplish anything!"

I got her on audiotape saying that. (She let me audiotape her,..I suppose,..because she didn't think that I had sense enough to know what to do with the tape!!!!)

Online,..I have been told that a book,..which I will be signing at the upcoming book signing,.."does not exist." Hmmmn! I suppose that it "didn't exist"...just because the person,..who told me that,..said that it didn't exist?

As I busily sign.."Life is more than what you see".. said book, WALKING FREE, at the "book signing event",..I will remember the influence of such folks in my life. I will even remember them while hopefully someday in the future...I play with my grandchildren and tell them the story of the deaf blind lady,.who taught me how to "walk free!'"

I am proud of our books and I am proud that we have sold so many of them and have come...so close,..so close,..so close to being considered a "success" with them. I guess that I'll wear a dress and sit and smile and sign WALKING FREE and answer questions like.."How many times a day does a blind person bump into walls ?" or "Do the blind REALLY play baseball?"

(Yes,...the blind really do play baseball!! They play it with a beeping ball and I guess have a lot of fun with their version of the game!!")