From the newsroom of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, New York, Thursday, May 29, 2008

In July 1975, more than 400 new deaf and hard of hearing students came from all over the United States for the Summer Vestibule program at National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology. During this program, I met many wonderful people, including my future husband.

Gary, who is hard of hearing, grew up in Chicago in a Jewish family and went to school without any support services. He did not learn American Sign Language until he got to RIT. I am a native of Rochester, from a Catholic family. I grew up using a form of visible English known as the “Rochester Method” (I fingerspell with each letter to represent a word) at the Rochester School for the Deaf, where ASL wasn’t allowed.

From the time I was in high school, my dream was to marry a Catholic guy and Gary’s wish was to marry a Jewish girl. Gary and I met each other while we were waiting for our academic counselor. We kept getting together to learn ASL, support each other, laugh together and share our time during our college years. We broke up twice during college to date other people. During our senior year, we knew that we were meant for each other.

July 3 will be our 25th anniversary. We are still very much in love. Our beautiful children, Ashley, 21, and Jonathan, 18, joined our lives and made them even better. People keep asking about our different religions and how it affected our children. I just kept saying that we share values such as respect for others, sharing and love under one God. My dear aunt, Sister Kathy Hannan, was the only person to mention to us that she thought that it was wonderful for us to share two different religions on our wedding day. Her special message taught me to have faith and to realize that God had made plans for us.

We still have a poster hanging in our bedroom that shows a couple standing on long beach grass during a sunset with a quote by Walter Benton that says, “We need no words. We are complete.” Everyone that has seen the poster has asked if it was us. It always makes us smile.