A Couple I Am Thankful to Know

I have several friends but I have 2 friends whom I feel truly blessed to know. Their names are Mary and Bucky Carver. They live in Clinton, TN but will soon be relocating to Oak Ridge, TN when their new home is completed. I first met Bucky when I was a student at Pellissippi State taking a class in American Sign Language. He was the assistant teacher and also my tutor. One day he brought his daughter, Tori, to class with him. She is a wonderful girl and very shy. Bucky came to my house to help me put down some linoleum and Tori came with him. She was so shy at first but then she and I started trying to see who could nail the wood down the fastest. The evening ended up with me taking Tori for a ride on my motorcycle. When I found out Tori was going to be playing baseball (my favorite sport), I went to all the games I could. Bucky and Mary also have 2 sons, Justin, 13, and Ryan, 5. Ryan just started kindergarten and doesn't like school. Justin is your typical teenage boy, only very nice and considerate of others. Bucky also attends Pellissippi and is working toward a degree in networking and communications. I wish I was half as smart as he is. I met Mary at one of Tori's ball games, along with her mother Lillian, Lilly for short. Mary was very nice but I didn't see her again for awhile. When I did get the opportunity to see her again, she was still the same sweet girl I met the first time. I call her a girl because she's my daughter's age. Bucky and Mary are very patient with me when I talk to them. You see they, along with their daughter Tori, are deaf. I just consider them friends though, not "deaf" friends. I have met alot of hearing people that I wish were as nice as they are. We get along great, or at least I think we do. Sometimes I feel like I'm being a bit overbearing because I want to spend time with them alot when I know they have their own friends in the same culture that they have known alot longer than they have known me. I just feel lucky that they have accepted me as a friend. My entire outlook on the deaf world has changed since I started taking ASL and met the Carvers. If I ever hear anyone say anything bad about anyone just because they are deaf, I will be fighting mad and I tell them the only reason they say bad things about people is because they are uncomfortable with their own insecurities. I have never met a nicer family than the Carvers, deaf or otherwise. Tori has graduated from elementary school to middle school now. Kids just grow up too fast. Although I have known them for just a short time, I feel as though I have known them forever.