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Her world is dark, silent
Few face the challenges that Nancy Brown does. She is deaf, blind and mute
Date published: 9/7/2008
BY JIM HALL One of the benefits of having a mother who can't see, hear or speak is that you can plan a surprise party for her while she's in the room. Which is what Frank Brown Jr. did. This spring Brown called friends and relatives to invite them to a surprise 65th-birthday party for his mother, Nancy Brown. Brown, 36, planned to take his mother to lunch at Massaponax. Then, rather than go back to their Spotsylvania County home, he would take her to Fredericksburg, where family and friends would be waiting. But Nancy Brown wasn't completely surprised. She is deaf, blind and mute, but not unaware. After the birthday lunch, Frank Brown turned north onto U.S. 1 to go to the party, rather than south toward home. Nancy Brown, riding in the passenger seat, knew something was up. "Where are we going?" she asked, using sign language. "Are we going on Route 1 south?" Frank extended his right hand, and she placed her hand on top of his so she could "hear" his reply. "No, something different," he signed. She noticed that the pavement under the car felt different. And the inside of the car grew darker for an instant when they passed under Interstate 95. When they got to the party, 20 people awaited them. Nancy Brown was delighted to find her sister-in-law from Durham, N.C., and her sister and her husband from Roanoke. "Yes, I was very surprised," she said. BLIND AND DEAF Nancy Brown is one of perhaps 3,000 deaf-blind people in Virginia. Accurate numbers are hard to come by. Experts say that the deaf-blind often don't describe themselves that way, especially if they can see or hear at all. Brown, however, fits almost any definition of the term. Recently, when asked about her losses, she sat at her kitchen table and typed on her Braille typewriter. "I am not totally blind yet, but I am still blind," she wrote. As for her hearing, she typed: "I grew up a deaf person not able to hear anything." As a result, she doesn't speak. Brown began to lose her sight in the 1970s. She was in her 30s and the mother of three small children. Within 12 years, she was almost totally blind.
Read more stories about Fredericksburg Date published: 9/7/2008
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