To End with the Beginning in Mind
By Leeanne Seaver, H&V Headquarters
This memory is indelible. We’re in El Dorado Canyon for a pleasant Sunday afternoon hike that turns into a desperate relay event for Tom and me. We’re taking turns chasing after little Dane who, despite being profoundly Deaf, has heard the mountain calling his name. Oblivious to our repeated demands to slow down, WAIT for Daddy, Mommy, and baby brother, Dane fearlessly scrambles up another rock face and out of sight. We can’t keep up with him and we can’t call him back.
We didn’t know it yet, but this wasn’t impulsiveness, it was a critical life skill—pure self-determination at the tender age of four. Our part was (nods to age-appropriateness here) to let him go.
All these years later, I smile and shake my head with “even then they knew” resignation about my son following his bliss at full-throttle. Some version of this keeps playing out. Dane is now a man full of joie de vivre who climbs the mountains of his life freestyle. It can be scary to watch at times, and it’s always a pulse-racing reminder of what I am and am not in control of as his mom. Then, as now, my increasing realization has been that I must let him go.
This is my last column for The Communicator. It’s time for me to let go of H&V, too. This has happened by degrees. It’s hard to leave anything feeling unfinished. The world has changed a lot since I learned Dane was a “seer,” but not nearly enough. The challenges facing families today are different, but not different enough. Ideological turf wars still rage, although maybe there’s more middle ground now. DHH students continue to lag behind their hearing peers, but perhaps less so.* Some things I thought could be fixed aren’t, but “no matter. Try again, fail again. Fail better.” (Beckett)
I’ve come to peace with all this unfinished business the way one does when she realizes life is about the journey, not the destination. I’ve reached the end with this beginning in mind: all endings contain a new beginning with new people.
For decades, I’ve had the privilege of participating in an idea that became Hands & Voices. Without Cheryl Johnson, Laura Lunde, Christine Yoshinaga-Itano, Janet DesGeorges, and David Foster, I’d have given up long ago in frustration over the state of the world for families like mine. The names of others who helped oxygenate the planet of H&V exceed the wordcount limit for this column, but with boundless thanks, I think of you all… I do. I hold my hands on the memory of each face so gently and gratefully.
If I have learned anything from this H&V experience, it’s that our job as leaders is a lot like parenting: We must let our children—the next generation—lead us. They’re taking us where they want and need to go, even if that might not be a place we’re comfortable being. No doubt, a powerful sense of discomfort is indeed the acme of indicators, so we should lean into that. The end of all our striving is to hand striving itself off to the next generation of parent leaders. They will carry on because this is just the beginning for them, not the end.
We must let them begin again.
To begin with the end in mind is an important way to navigate, but I no longer believe we’ll reach the end we had in mind. There will only ever be a new beginning there. In a perfect world, we’re always trailing a little behind our kids because that’s what it looks like when they’re leading the way, as they should. Our job is to help them find their own path well-prepared to take the journey that’s theirs… then let them go. ~
*Deaf Youth: What Does the Data Tell Us? – National Deaf Center
https://nationaldeafcenter.org/resources/research-data/deaf-youth-report/
H&V Communicator – Winter 2024/25