THE AUDACITY OF LOVE: A CHRISTMAS MORNING IN SIGNS
- ARTISTIC HUB MAGAZINE
- Dec 24, 2025
- 3 min read
We often search for real grace in loud, miraculous ways, but true blessing is frequently found in the quietest moments of clarity. This column is about recognizing the silent blessing: the moment our family realized that the inability to hear opened the door to a new way of seeing and understanding each other. Choosing to learn South African Sign Language (SASL) was not a passive acceptance, but an active choice to build a new world, a choice that instantly transformed the painful “ugly silence” into a shared space of celebration, echoing the quiet, powerful arrival of the greatest gift.
The Silence that Sings
I once spent my time equating silence with a vast, starless sky, a hollow place where answers were swallowed by the dark and safety was a melody I could never quite reach. It was the "ugly silence," a heavy, wordless fog that obscured the future we were so desperate to hear. Then came our first Christmas morning of real communication, with proper signing rather than gestures, and it was the explosion we had been waiting for.
For families across the country, the sounds of ripped paper and excited squeals would be filling the air. But in our room, the morning was characterized by a different kind of joyful noise: the sound of pure, unbridled communication pouring from my son’s hands.
He woke up, saw the lights on the tree outside our door, and went absolutely crazy with signs.
He began leaping on the bed, and we could not stop laughing. The jumping made us laugh, but his hands were the real story. His small, fast hands were flying through the air, articulating concepts he had just learned the night before. He signed the Christmas Tree (hands mimicking the shape of the branches), then the lights (small, twinkling finger movements), and then, with spectacular drama, he signed Santa! (a hand cupped to his chin for the beard). He signed Elf, he signed Reindeer. Every new piece of visual information he took in, from the stockings to the red bow on a gift, and the glitter on my nightdress, was instantly translated into language.
My husband and I just looked at each other, laughing nonstop. We weren't laughing at him, but with him, overwhelmed by the sheer, magnificent power of his expression.
For other families, the peak of Christmas morning joy is the moment a child opens a highly anticipated present. But for us, the true gift was the torrent of shared vocabulary. We weren't exchanging objects; we were exchanging meaning.
Christmas Magic
We weren’t just seeing a little human. We were seeing a fully present soul, bursting with the ability to name, describe, and share his world with us. The noise of other Christmases, the carols, the shouts, the crowded rooms suddenly felt irrelevant. Our silence was full. It was full of moving hands, wide-open eyes, and the deep, silent rumble of family laughter that shakes your entire body.
Our silence was the loudest, most eloquent testimony to love I had ever witnessed.
It was in those moments, suspended between the constant jumping and the rapid-fire of signs, that the revelation from my earlier struggles crystallized once and for all: The solution was never outside of me, waiting for a diagnosis or a cure.
The solution was the internal commitment to meet him where he was, using the language of his senses. That Christmas, the silence that used to scream at me suddenly began to sing. It sang a profound truth:
The hands that sign are the ultimate expression of the audacity of love.
We moved from a "Medical Model," which looks for what is broken, to a "Social Model," which looks for how to connect. This shift triggered what psychologists call joint attention. In a hearing world, attention is often split between what we see and what we hear. In our silent room, our attention was laser-focused.
That morning gave me something to hold onto. Love does not wait for perfect conditions.
It learns, it adapts, and it builds.
Much love,
Whenlee
