Not Fade Away: A Memoir of Senses Lost and Found by Rebecca Alexander & Sascha Alper

Author:Rebecca Alexander & Sascha Alper [Alexander, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-09-11T00:00:00+00:00

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When I first saw Alan’s profile on JDate, in the winter of my last year of graduate school, I remember thinking to myself, I’m going to marry this guy. His online profile was full of wit and his sense of humor was unmistakable. He was eight years older than I was, unbelievably funny and clever, and, though not my typical muscle-bound jock, he had an adorable smile and a grown-up menschiness that I found myself instantly attracted to. Though all that I had been through had in some ways given me a maturity that others my age didn’t have, there were other ways in which I had given myself license to act less grown-up. While I had dated a lot of guys in college, there had been no one serious, and I realize now that I always had one foot out the door. If I didn’t, I reasoned, they probably would. A part of me would wonder how long someone was going to want to stay with me when it sank in that, while I might be very self-sufficient now, someday I was going to need help, and lots of it. How could someone try to imagine a future with a woman who would someday be deaf and blind?

In my better moments I knew that this wasn’t true, that I needed to give guys more credit than that, and I also had to admit to myself my other reasons for not wanting to get too close. How long did I have to be young and pretty? How long would I be able to hide my disabilities and just show a shiny exterior? How long would I be able to banter and charm and not say “what” fifty times in a conversation? Already, I said it too much, and it took much more work than it used to for me to seem normal. So I surprised myself on my first date with Alan.

It began inauspiciously enough. He met me in front of my apartment building, and as we walked to the restaurant, the street noise of the city made it impossible for me to hear most of what he was saying. Whatever he had to say, apparently, was quite funny, and at one point he turned to me and said, “You’re killing me here, I’m using my best material and you’re not laughing.”

Then he actually said, “What are you, deaf?” I didn’t say anything back, just smiled and laughed, but then as we got to the restaurant and turned to go inside, I walked straight into the glass door. At this point he probably thought I was either on drugs or a complete lunatic, but he kept at it. The final straw was when he held a fork in front of me to take a bite of his food, and I didn’t even see it.

Alan is Jewish and, like many of us, comes from a family where food is so much more than sustenance. It is love, intimacy, and sharing. He was sharing his food, and he thought I was ignoring it, refusing his bite.

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