Written by Christine Galli, M.Ed
I hired a phenomenal woman, Wendy McCance, to help me get my social media world in order. What is social media for but to share information, tips and tricks and to personalize who I am and who is Technology In A Box. She truly is diligent about making plans with me, showing me new venues, inspiring me to write write WRITE AND WRITE about anything of importance or something I just want to say about today.
So, today I was compelled to write about something near and dear to me: music and speech disability. I opened up an email from my daughter Sarah that contained a Ted Talk about those very topics. My niece Rachel started me on Ted Talks and I haven’t missed a week since she shared one long ago. Sarah, along with my son Nick and daughter Caroline, share a love and a need for expressing themselves through music.Sarah pursued the violin, Nick took piano and drums and Caroline left soccer to pursue piano and the clarinet. So our house is a house of music and my children’s expression of that has filled my soul. Musicals, opera, classic rock and jazz are my norm. I was blessed that they all loved to express through music but did not have to.
My father, Alex, loved opera, jazz and all sorts of other genres. He loved to dance and could keep a beat all night long. I remember one day, he came into my room when I was listening to La Traviata and told me how he loved opera and to keep the door open so he could listen to me study the music. Alex was not as lucky as my children. He had a problem with stuttering his whole life. As a business man, he rocked the universe and could wheel and deal until the sun set. But he shied away from public speaking like the plague. You can imagine how we were all moved to tears when he finally gave his first speech at church as senior warden. This was not his first stint as a senior warden, but it was the first time he agreed to finally speak at our annual meeting. It took alot of courage to skip his annual trip to anywhere to face this daunting task. We were proud as hell.
Somehow, I became a champion of people with educational and language barriers. My childhood friend Danny also stuttered but I didn’t really understand why, nor did I care. We played every day and it didn’t seem like a big deal that he couldn’t speak a mile a minute. Maybe I was just used to being patient while someone struggled to get out certain consonants or blends. Funny how I reacted when I first heard someone make fun of him. No one had made fun of my father in front of me so I didn’t know how cruel people could be and how much I would grow to challenge those who didn’t understand. Unfortunately, I did not have experience or diplomacy behind me to handle the perpetrator so I did what any other middle child would have done to a bully. I beat him up.
The Ted Talk that Sarah sent is the story of Megan Washington who also stuttered her whole life. She learned early on that if she could just sing her words, then her speech barrier would dissolve into the wind and her words would float out of her mouth. She learned techniques, as did my father, to overcome an extraordinarily difficult situation and to use her strengths to tackle the beast and stand up in front of a crowd. Times have been good to Megan as she is now a famous singer in Australia. Times were good to Alex as he was well loved, very successful and extremely giving.
We all have obstacles that are daunting. My clients continue to express their fear of making mistakes on QuickBooks and that they may never understand Debits and Credits. My response to those concerns is this: Did you sew your wedding dress or bake your cake or build the church on your wedding day just so you could be married? Or did you stay present for the moment and focus on what you were intended to do on this earth? Watch Megan in this Ted Talk and ask yourself this: What song am I not singing because I am afraid to tackle a challenge? Just take a breath and take that first step….. and then SING.
