Perseverance -- You Can Make It If You Try

A speech impediment made my childhood difficult. Stuttering was embarrassing and I was subjected to a lot of bullying. I tried to sit directly behind the student in front of me in hopes the teacher didn’t see me. I didn’t want to be called on. Even if I knew the answer to the question asked, I said “I don’t know” rather than give an answer that I would stutter to get out. 

One time I remember the teacher meeting with my mother and saying “Geraldine does quite well on written exams, but she would do much better if she would participate verbally.” I would rather take a lower score than risk more bullying. But I never revealed that to anyone as I didn’t want to bring even more attention to my speech impediment.

Over the years the problem became more manageable even though answering the phone was very difficult. While in my twenties, I would direct one of my toddlers to answer the phone because I couldn’t get out “hello.” 

One Sunday while reading the Parade insert in the newspaper, I read where a speech pathologist in Pittsburg was conducting a week-long program in South Carolina at a camp for people with a stuttering problem. He had a new technique using a metronome. Speech therapists from all over the country participated. Lodging, meals, and counseling were included in the price. A mother from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania called me to say that her 11 year-old daughter had a stuttering program and she wanted her to attend the doctor’s camp, but she couldn’t take off from work. She asked if she and her husband and the child could meet with me in case I might be interested in escorting her child on the trip that would start with a flight from Philadelphia. I didn’t hesitate in saying “yes” since I had great empathy for anyone enduring this academic and socially-crippling problem. 

One executive with a speech problem was very apprehensive about being called to Washington DC to testify about Agent Orange. He knew his speech impediment would be embarrassing in front of a panel interviewing him. Another participant was in med school and he had quite a sense of humor despite his stuttering problem. He said “I can just picture myself in the operating room and asking the nurse to hand me a –s-s-s-s capel.” 

Part of the counseling was a group outing to a nearby town where we would have to introduce ourselves to the shop keeper, say why we were visiting the area and then ask for assistance in finding an item. Most of us failed in getting the words out without stuttering. And some of the shop keepers reacted as if we had just told them that we had leprosy. Although the experience was meant to be therapeutic, it was humiliating. Up until then, we had avoided talking unless we had to. Why risk being looked at with the listener’s strained expression and obvious impatience waiting for us to get the words out. I hated to leave the camp at the end of the week as it was wonderful for the first time, not gauging what I wanted to say. 

I practiced the speech exercises I was taught when I got home. My speech improved over time and the anxiety gradually dissipated.

This new-found confidence encouraged me to take a risk I had wanted but avoided—earning a college degree. And so I signed up for my first college course and it ended up taking 25 years of going to college part time while raising five children to graduate with a degree in Journalism. I was 65 years old when I donned the cap and gown. 

I was taken aback and scared when I was chosen to be the commencement speaker. I decided to write a good speech and memorize it word for word. My topic was perseverance, not knowing at the time that perseverance was the motto of Temple University in Philadelphia. My five grown children were in the audience and it was a joyous occasion. Since then I have spoken on the radio and been interviewed on TV and I spoke without stuttering! To come out of the self-inflicted cocoon I was in for many years has imparted a new sense of freedom, something that I’m sure that people without a speech impediment take for granted.  For me, it is a gift.