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Communicating and Health

This month (October) is Women’s Health Month and Breast Cancer Awareness month. As a result, I have been thinking about the women in my life and the health situations that have occurred or are occurring in our family.   Some of these situations include memory loss (and brain connection issues), thyroid, ovarian cysts, and fibromyalgia.

About a month ago, our family decided to take a sign language class from the local college. We did this for many reasons. I have always wanted to learn sign language, and we were looking for an activity that our whole family could do together; one of our daughters already knows a lot of signs, and, because of our family health history, we are always looking for ways to build our brain connections.

Sign language has been fun to learn. Now that we are in the advanced class, we must communicate one to another by signing during class. I must admit that I almost didn’t take the class because I worry about being able to remember the signs. In our last class, I became aware of something I discovered a few years ago:  I understand more that is spoken in another language than I can speak. The teacher was giving us directions. Even though I didn’t understand all the words, I was able to follow her directions.

Sometimes, our lives are like that. We may not understand each aspect and what is being said, but we have a feeling for what we have to do. We may be unsure at times as we take a step into the darkness, but still, we try to understand what is needed from us.

Taking the class has been good for me. I hope that some day I can communicate with sign language as well as I speak English. There are other languages I would like to learn as well. The more people we can understand, the more we can do to become a family–a family as members of this world.