Nobody in this care home knows sign language

Dear Delyara, I am eighty-one and deaf. After a fall, my children moved me into a care home they believed could meet my needs. The staff are kind, but none of them signs. They write short messages on whiteboards, point, smile, and speak loudly as if volume can cross a language barrier. At meals, residents talk around me. I watch mouths move and laugh when everyone else laughs so nobody feels awkward. My hands have become quiet. I used British Sign Language every day for sixty years with my wife, who died before I came here. Now I sign to myself beneath the blanket at night because I am afraid the words will leave if my body stops using them. My daughter visits on Sundays and signs slowly, having learned only as an adult. Those two hours are the only time each week when I am not reduced to yes, no, pain, toilet, tea. People think loneliness means having no one nearby. I live among forty residents and twenty staff members. I am surrounded by faces and starving for one complete sentence.