What Marlee Does

Current mood: inspired
I am a total junkie when it comes to Dancing with the Stars. I have to watch. Every Monday and Tuesday you will find me threatening my children's lives for fear they interrupt my viewing of the show. I DVR it so I can see things I might miss and if something awesome happens, I watch it twice. I have watched every season with just as much enthusiasm as I had for the first season.

Last season I watched as Heather Mills and her one good leg bounced her way into history and actually made it pretty far into the season. Much farther than I wanted her to and much farther than I thought she would have gone. I am taking nothing away from her performace. She was pretty amazing, period. Take that fake leg into consideration and what she did was astounding. But, she screwed over a Beatle and for that, me no likey. That is merely a personal thing on my part.

This year the producers stepped out into another genre of what too many refer to as "the disabled." Marlee Matlin was asked to dance in the ballroom this season. Marlee Matlin is an amazing actress who has really overcome a tremendous obstacle in her life. She can't hear. She can hear nothing. No matter how loud you scream, she can't hear you, unless it is a trivial trace which just so happens to trigger her nervous system a bit. Trust me, I know that doesn't happen often for her. Oh, but let me add, she won an Oscar. Umm, and she was the first (and I believe still the only) deaf actor to ever win an Academy Award.

My paternal grandparents were both profoundly deaf. They married in the 1920s and began a family which would eventually include ten children. My grandfather was the first deaf licensed contractor in the state of Arizona. I could take you through Flagstaff and show you all the buildings my grandpa built, including churches and the original Chamber of Commerce building. My grandmother had her hands full having ten kids to take care of. I can't imagine having ten kids at all, then throw in the fact that she couldn't hear a sound and it just blows my mind.

So, every week I watch, like every week of Dancing with the Stars before, and I make my little uneducated guesses as to who will stay and who will be voted off and I have my favorites. But, every night I watch Marlee dance, I cry. I can't help it. There's nothing sad about it. I am crying tears of joy for Marlee. I am crying because I feel the pain my grandparents felt in the middle of the last century when people were unkind to anyone who was different. I cry because it wasn't that long ago that the deaf were called dumb because they didn't have the ability to understand "normal" people and because they had no auditory stimulation, they couldn't talk.

And there goes Marlee.

Dancing.

More amazingly, she dances well. She dances better than many people who have graced the dance floor in the past. Every week she sets out to prove she is capable of doing anything. Absolutely anything. She is a beautiful soul. She dances not because the music moves her, but because she can dance and she chooses to, and then she does it so well.

I don't know that there is anything more inspirational.