This week, I welcome Linda Samaritoni. Though The World without Sound, Amen is not published yet, I was excited for her to share her story with you. The book is based on her real life experiences growing up with a sister with special needs. As a mom of a child with multiple special needs, this story has touched my heart and blessed me. I pray that it will do the same for you.

1. Who inspired you to write your story?

I started this story almost thirty years ago! Tricia herself is the inspiration. She had graduated from college, and I wanted to celebrate her accomplishments. Plus, I wanted to write down childhood memories before I got too old and forgot. (Which was a good thing. When I returned to the project decades later, I had those notes to jog my middle-aged memory.)

2. How did having a sister with disabilities impact your life?

I believe when these kinds of challenges happen in life, we have the choice to lean on God and make something beautiful out of the situation, or we can whine and wallow in self pity. Our family pulled together and helped Tricia cope with the frustrations of deafness as well as helped her develop her talents.

Because of our struggles to communicate with a deaf child and the sorrow in watching a baby endure pain, I’m more compassionate than I may have been without the lessons from my adolescence. I learned to speak up for those who couldn’t speak for themselves. For example, in one anecdote in World Without Sound, Amen I become infuriated when kids on the school bus torment a boy who is mentally retarded. I call out the lead bully and shame him into silence. (Note: in 1965, it was totally proper to say the boy was mentally retarded. The term was a diagnosis, not a derogatory comment.)

3. Why did you want to write about her?

There was always something special about Tricia, and I don’t say that because we’re sisters. She was bright and funny and sweet-natured from birth. Her brown eyes sparkled at whatever interested her so we enjoyed plenty of sparkles in an average day. She was curious about everything – including black widow spiders!

It’s amazing that a little girl who endured open heart surgery before she was four months old, who was born profoundly deaf and blind in one eye, and who was never able to walk correctly because of cerebral palsy grew up to earn a master’s degree in education and has enjoyed two careers, one in accounting and one as a teacher of the deaf. Those are her worldly accomplishments. Far greater is her solid faith in Christ.

4. What is it you hope young people come away with when they read your story?

A couple of things. Kids wonder how they might handle a sibling who isn’t quite “right.” Would it mess up their family? Could they be happy? I currently have several of my middle grade students taking on the role of alpha readers after I shared the synopsis of the novel. Tricia’s story shows them problems in life may not always be fun, but those problems can’t stop people from loving each other. World Without Sound, Amen is filled with joy.

I also hope my young readers would grow in the virtue of compassion. Children understand what is fair and what is not. I want them to finish the book and have the confidence to champion someone less fortunate than themselves.

5. Tell us a little bit about the plot for your story?

I chose to focus on the first five years of Tricia’s life for those were the hardest. We didn’t yet know which repercussions of rubella we would face. It took two years to diagnose the deafness, and we didn’t know about the CP until it became obvious that she wasn’t simply slow to begin walking. She couldn’t walk. Add the monumental task of teaching a young child language when she has no concept of the spoken word, and you have a great central conflict for the story.

So there is the timeline of her physical development and language development as one thread of the plot, and through Linda’s point of view, a second thread interweaves the feelings and reactions of the various family members with Tricia’s significant challenges. Notice in the above paragraph I say “we” a lot. Every member of the family pitched in to teach Tricia language.

6. Does your sister know about the book? What does she think about it?

Both Tricia and our mom have read the finished draft. Of course, each of us has a different set of memories that stood out, so they were helpful in fleshing out a few scenes that might have been hazy memories for me but far more vivid for one or both of them.

Tricia has never told me what she thinks of the book as a whole. I’m guessing she might feel weird that an entire book has been written about her life and the lives of our family, but I haven’t asked. Instead, she has made suggestions for various scenes and given her opinions on details that she liked or didn’t like.

One thing I found humorous. At the moment I have pseudonyms for all the characters except her. While I may or may not use our real names in the final version, Tricia didn’t want to be the only character with her real name. She wanted to be “Marie.” I told her there was no way I could name her Marie in the book. You see, the entire goal for the main character of Tricia is to say her name properly. T, R, and SH are all difficult to say if you can’t hear. It was a triumph for her when she could say her name. M is easy. A little extra work on the R, and she would have been able to say “Marie” before she ever went to school. No conflict, no book!

Thanks so much for sharing your very personal story with us, Linda. We look forward to reading The World without Sound, Amen in the near future.