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Good afternoon graduates, faculty, staff,
families, and friends, as well as the Board of Trustees
and everybody in the room today.
I am absolutely delighted to be here today with the honor
and privilege of being asked to speak
on behalf of the graduate class of 2009.
Today is a day of celebration of our accomplishments
as well as reflection on what has brought us to this moment.
While contemplating my own celebration and reflection
I thought about three things in particular: persistence,
personal challenges, and the people in my life.
I have wanted to be a school teacher
for as long as I can remember.
I was very young when I first heard the name Abraham Lincoln,
and that name sparked my fascination with history,
books, education, and why people do what they do
and make the decisions they make.
Abraham Lincoln said, "I am a slow walker,
but I never walk backwards."
Lincoln was not really talking about speed,
rather he was talking about making progress,
standing by your decisions,
and never turning back on a commitment.
As a teenager, I realized then that I was a CODA,
a child of deaf adults.
I was bilingual and bicultural and tired of it all.
I didn't want it anymore.
And, trust me, if your father was my father,
you would get how I felt!
My father's dreams for me to be an interpreter
or to be a deaf educator were about to be shattered.
That wasn't my dream.
Only I was going to decide what I was going to do
and I decided to leave the deaf world.
So I did.
I graduated college;
I got a job teaching at a Pennsylvania public school.
Then I met a strikingly good looking man named John,
who happened to be deaf and we got married,
had a child, and he also happened to be deaf.
Our second child also happened to be deaf.
So how much longer could I keep ignoring all of these signs?
At that point, I had been teaching in the public schools
for about a decade, and I realized
that I was in the right field, but the wrong place.
And I was reminded of Abraham Lincoln's words.
Would I walk forward or backwards?
Well, my husband and I with our two young children came forward.
We came to Gallaudet.
I quit my job, and we made Gallaudet University
in Washington D.C. our home.
Which it has been for the past four years.
I live in Kendall family apartments.
I took classes at Gallaudet University.
I worked at MSSD.
My husband worked in the dorms at MSSD.
My children attended Kendall School.
So my roots are fairly deep here at Gallaudet.
The experience has been tremendous.
Admittedly, though, it has been frustrating and I admit that
sometimes I would have looked like a crazy woman trying
to balance all of the demands of my personal and academic
and professional lives.
Through it all, I remembered Abraham Lincoln's words.
I'm glad that I decided to make that step forward.
I was faced with that decision and because I forced myself
to go forward, I realized that it was actually
only because of the community
and the people around me here at Gallaudet,
through all of the frustrations with my studies, my family,
my work, at any point, that I felt like I couldn't handle it,
there was always somebody in this community
willing to support me.
Be it someone from Kendall family apartments, a classmate,
a professor, to help me realize that I could do it,
and would do it.
The people of Gallaudet standing around me,
behind me and pushing me
are the ones that helped me move forward.
Now, all of us here are graduating today!
For some of us, it's our first graduation,
for some it's our second and some of you in the first row,
it seems like it's your third time graduating.
When you leave here today, what will you do?
Thinking of Abraham Lincoln's words, will you walk slowly,
thinking, planning, deliberating, reflecting,
or will you retreat to the path of least resistance?
Four years ago, I had never imagined that I would be here.
Four years ago, I never imagined
I would be graduating from Gallaudet.
Four years ago, I learned that President Abraham Lincoln signed
Gallaudet's Enabling Act, our charter, on April 8, 1864.
This reaffirmed for me the important role
that Abraham Lincoln's decisions and words have had in my life.
Mind you, in 1864, the United States was engaged
in our Civil War, fighting horrific battles.
Like those great Americans of yesteryear,
I know you graduating today have battled your own struggles.
I've wanted to give up more than I would like to admit,
but then I look at my boys, I look at my students at MSSD,
I look at the undergraduates and graduates in the room
and I think about whether I should give up
and take that past of least resistance.
How will you lead the next generation?
Will you stride ahead
in perspiration, in determination, taking risks
or walk backwards in hopes of finding an easier life?
I was meant to be here today, and so were all of you.
Today, as we graduate from this great place of higher learning,
the only University of its kind, please keep Lincoln's words
in mind and ask yourself: will I walk slowly
and forge my way ahead,
or will I turn back from the opportunities that await me?
I'd like to close by thanking my husband, my children,
the three of you are really my rock.
I'd like to think my sister-in-law,
all of you for never giving up on me,
to my friends at Gallaudet, MSSD, Kendall School families,
I thank you for sharing your home with me, and finally,
without my mom and dad, I would not be the proud CODA
that I am today, so thank you.
And ironically, my father's first name
happens to be Lincoln.
And Dad, it seems that you were right after all!
Thank you for your time
and congratulations to the class of 2009!