22nd of May
This has been a very special week. And although I don’t know where to start or how to word it, I feel the occasion warrants that I at least try.
Let’s begin with what took place today, Friday 22nd of May 2015, in London, England.
My Grandfather was invited to receive an award on behalf of The Commonwealth and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. He met Prince William who gave him the medal, and title, of M.B.E. for his life’s work with the deaf and hearing-impaired in Derbyshire and Lincolnshire, England. We’re all incredibly proud of him.
My Grandmother, his ex-wife, is also fluent in B.S.L.. And my Grandfather’s wife has a grown-up daughter who is deaf, and she married a deaf man too. Their two sons are not hard of hearing but sign with their parents. So there are quite a few speakers on that side of the family.
(British Sign Language – Learn BSL Online)
19th? of May
A few days before I had burst into hysterical tears upon opening three identical letters addressed to my mother, my sister, and myself. These weren’t sad tears but tears of shear relief, gratefulness, and praise to God. My Mum first started fighting to get us recognised as 80% disabled ine 2001, first for my sister then for all of us. Fourteen years… We finally have the A.A.H. (Allocation pour Adultes Handicapés).
“There have been times that I thought I couldn’t last for long
But now I think I’m able to carry on
It’s been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will!”
26th of June
Lily Câline joined the household today after a week of phone calls and one 45 min car trip in both directions in order to meet her. She is a dog who’s been much prayed for, long before we knew of her existence. God has been incredibly good to us.
Lily was rescued from a puppy mill by a local association. She is a “Little Lion Dog/Löwchen”, 7 years old, and thought to have had at least 3 or 4 litters already. 🙁 Monday 6th of July at 10 A.M. she will be going to have a full check-up at the vet’s and we’ll see what options are available for her sterilisation.
She is such a sweetheart, loves humans, loves the love and attention. She came to us in a filthy state: knotted and caked up non-shedding fur so it just kept growing more and more tangled as the years of neglect went by, she had thorns and spiky dried grass sticking into her flesh preventing her from moving around freely, her behind and back legs had excrements on them, she had rastas coming out of her ears! Her back thumb claws had also grown all the way back into her flesh, but those were trimmed by a vet just before being dropped off in the evening with her papers by a volunteer working for the association.
And on the same day we were getting our kitchen put in order with the new cupboards put in. We’d had the old ones for over 20 years and they were actually crumbling to the touch and the shelves were collapsing!
5th of July
A relative from the U.S. got in touch today! The last time I saw her I was 3 years old. 😀
And Lily has been here 8 days now and we have washed her, cut off her hair, trimmed her “ear fur” (no more ear rastas, yay!), taught her her new name (having never been called her birth name, she didn’t know at first to respond to a human calling her), she can also walk on the lead, gets on fine with our other dog, Ginger, and spends her time cuddling with one human or another.
