Sign Language

Two weeks ago I began taking American Sign Language. I have wanted to take sign language for some time and my interest increased when my middle daughter Aly took sign language as an independent study class last year. This also prompted my youngest daughter Avery's interest and when the high school began offering it as a course this year Avery signed up. With everyone on board with learning this language I was even more determined to give it a shot.

The class I take is once a week through a small Deaf services office near my home and while it is not as intense as the courses my daughters are in I hope to learn enough to interact with my girls using this language. I was even more intrigued about learning this language when a woman in my class shared that she had had a closed head injury and a stroke and there was concern about early onset dementia, her doctor had recommended that she learn a new language because learning a language opens up new pathways to the brain.

I am always concerned about my brains pathways because I have watched my Granddaddy and my Mom suffer and die from Alzheimer's disease. My Mom lived in fear of getting Alzheimer's and I have often wondered if the fear actually brought it on, if nothing else maybe more quickly for her. I had started to feel the fear of this brain sucking disease building in my mind and realized that the fear would not help keep the illness away, knowledge would.

I forget things and I lose things often and as I age the sense that I may be a chip off the Alzheimer's block has taken control of my common sense. If stress and worry take charge, I could very easily talk myself down a slope that I could avoid if I just focus on making myself a better me. Taking sign language is that focus for me, American Sign Language and reading. I intend to keep forging new pathways for myself and hopefully changing my focus from what I am afraid of, to a new language and a new way of communicating with my girls. By continuing to grow as a person I am giving myself and my brain more to work with and then no matter what, I am leaving this world with more knowledge then I came in to it with.