Not hear, Not see, do speak

NOT HEAR, NOT SEE, DO SPEAK

If your world becomes dark and quiet, will you be quiet as well?

When Joyce was seventeen years old, a physician told her that she would be of no value for society. He advised her to learn a language. “Then you can perhaps translate a book some time.” That was all that was in it for her, according to him.

At that moment, Joyce has just found out that she suffers from the very rare Usher Syndrome, which would gradually deteriorate her hearing and seeing in the course of time and cause her to be deaf and blind by the time she would be forty years old. Because of this diagnosis she was in a hurry: she wanted to see everything, learn everything and experience everything before her world would be definitely dark and quiet. She continuously fought against her disease and she desperately searched for a way to see the good of it – until she realised that she could never win this fight. Then she started to believe that she had something to tell the world. The fact that she would no longer be able to hear or see some time in the future did not necessarily mean that she would also not speak.

Now she is married, mother of two children, entrepreneur and a popular speaker. She cannot stop the approaching darkness and quietness, but she can use her story to inspire others and to learn how to better cope with changes.

And no, she never translated a book. She did, however, write one. And some book this is!