Ceejay Martin
At the age of 18 months, Ceejay Martin was watching television with her family when suddenly the sound went off. Confused as to what was happening, her parents put her to bed. The next morning, when she did not respond to voices, they realized something was horribly wrong. They rushed her to their family doctor in Fairfield, CT. The news was jarring: their only baby girl had suffered a loss of hearing. Ceejay was profoundly deaf.
Despite various operations and experimental treatments, nothing could restore the hearing loss. Ceejay’s parents made a life-time vow: “We will do whatever we can, absolutely everything in our power, to enable you to become as much a part of the ‘hearing world’ as possible.”
They enrolled her in the Fairfield Hearing and Speech Center. Ceejay began to learn the process of speaking “by imitating the vibrations I felt when I put my hands on the therapist’s throat, and by looking in the mirror to shape my mouth the way she formed hers”.
Later came endless hours with voice and drama coaches, as well as trumpet and piano lessons. “I’ve never heard a mistake I’ve made yet,” quips Ceejay, who is trained as a classical pianist.
When Ceejay mastered the art of lip reading and speaking, she entered public elementary school and was assigned a seat on the front row from where she could see the teacher’s lips. Her struggle to learn was difficult (when the teacher turned to face the blackboard, all communication ended).
Learning was made difficult, as well, due to constant ridicule from fellow students making fun of her speech patterns. To escape their teasing and taunting, Ceejay spent more and more time at a nearby skating rink. With the help of a determined coach, Ceejay began to skate by keeping an eve on her coach who, like a conductor, marked the beat of the music. At age seven, Ceejay became the youngest Ohio State Champion free-style skater in skating history. “It really saved my life. Why? I might have talked awful funny. And I might have been that class dummy.
Despite various operations and experimental treatments, nothing could restore the hearing loss. Ceejay’s parents made a life-time vow: “We will do whatever we can, absolutely everything in our power, to enable you to become as much a part of the ‘hearing world’ as possible.”
They enrolled her in the Fairfield Hearing and Speech Center. Ceejay began to learn the process of speaking “by imitating the vibrations I felt when I put my hands on the therapist’s throat, and by looking in the mirror to shape my mouth the way she formed hers”.
Later came endless hours with voice and drama coaches, as well as trumpet and piano lessons. “I’ve never heard a mistake I’ve made yet,” quips Ceejay, who is trained as a classical pianist.
When Ceejay mastered the art of lip reading and speaking, she entered public elementary school and was assigned a seat on the front row from where she could see the teacher’s lips. Her struggle to learn was difficult (when the teacher turned to face the blackboard, all communication ended).
Learning was made difficult, as well, due to constant ridicule from fellow students making fun of her speech patterns. To escape their teasing and taunting, Ceejay spent more and more time at a nearby skating rink. With the help of a determined coach, Ceejay began to skate by keeping an eve on her coach who, like a conductor, marked the beat of the music. At age seven, Ceejay became the youngest Ohio State Champion free-style skater in skating history. “It really saved my life. Why? I might have talked awful funny. And I might have been that class dummy.
But there wasn’t one kid in my school, not one of them, who had a bigger trophy than I did!” Ceejay’s parents continued to encourage her.
“Mother had a painting of Jesus hanging in my bedroom. She explained that with God’s help, there was absolutely nothing in my life I couldn’t do.”
That inspiration, instilled at an early age, eventually led Ceejay to enroll in Springfield College in Springfield, MA. In 1976, she completed her Bachelor of Science degree in political science and international relations. Graduate work followed at the University of Connecticut. “I’ve worked all my life to function in the hearing world,” she says, noting that her hard work finally paid off when she was hired by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington, DC. At first, she helped start a program to train deaf people to classify fingerprints. However, due to her superb
ability to read lips, she was approached by agents who had videotaped an investigation, only to find the camera's sound mechanism had failed.
"They asked if I could read the people's lips and tell what was being said." Her successful completion of that high profile case led to work in undercover surveillance. "It was no problem for me to stand across a room in, say, an airport where a deal was going down, and take verbatim notes on what the suspects were saying!"
Despite her success with the FBI, invitations to gala parties and widespread esteem in the nation's capitol, Ceejay was not satisfied. She'd met and exceeded her family's highest dreams for her and had, indeed, become a successfully functioning member of the ‘hearing world’. "But I began to think there must be something more for me than this," she says.
Ceejay travelled to the tropical island of Morada on a case and is currently searching for that "something more" while using her skills to solve crime.
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