I met her in second grade. I was new to school. Before that, I was homeschooled, the only people I interacted with being my parents and twin brother. They all knew sign language.

I've often thought how strange my parents must've felt. One son was normal while the other son was stone deaf. I sure felt strange having a translator follow me around that first day at school. No one talked to me. To them, my deafness was an abyss, gaping too wide for anyone to dare to cross it. I went home, complaining that I had no friends, that no one liked me. My parents told me to give it a few days.

The next day,I walked into the classroom, a little girl saw me, her face lit up, and she ran over to me. With slow, deliberate movements, she signed, "Be my friend." That was all she could say, but it was a start, a bridge finally spanning across the abyss.

We grew older and grew closer together. She eventually took a sign language course to become my translator. We were inseparable and told each other everything. I still remember the day that I finally confessed how I felt. I had told her that I like someone and began to describe that girl. She alternated between looking around and watching my hands.

"Who is it?" she signed. "No one fits that description." No one else for my description because there is no one like her.

"I'm looking at her," I signed. And I am. I'm looking at her now, standing at the altar with me, radiant in her wedding dress, signing the words "I do."