Deafness

 

 "Could you please turn up the volume?" My daughter and I were watching TV in her Boston suburban apartment.

She put down the needlework she was working on and reached for the remote. "Have you thought of getting your hearing checked?"

Three weeks later back in France, the young man who had just tested my hearing put two pieces of paper in front of me. "You see there's a 27% loss in your left ear, 30% in your right."

I never thought I might develop a hearing problem. There were none in my family.

I thought of Johnnie Raye, a transition singer from ballad to rock and his hits Cry and . He was deaf and he wore a hearing aid that had a wire attached to a device.

I thought of a fellow student when I was at uni. Ginger had been deaf from birth, read lips. Her speech was thick and sometimes it was frustrating to understand her. However, I realized how much harder she had to try and admired her courage. If it bothered her, she never let on, just plowed through.

I thought of Rene, an IT person I worked with in Geneva. People told me, when I talked with him, I had to make sure he heard me. Rene later went to Boston's Eye and Ear hospital and had an experimental implant that improved his hearing.

I thought of my widowed stepmom and her new boyfriend on a drive. I was in the back seat and they needed to repeat to hear what each of them was saying or almost yelling.

I thought of my friend Odile, who taught deaf children. I'd been a guest in one of her classes with her signing what I said. The energy she put into her work with those kids was astounding.

I thought of my husband with far more serious hearing problems than mine, that he works around. We joke that he can claim her never heard something I told him rather than admit he forgot, or I told him something that I never did and he just didn't hear me. We talked about sign language, but French and English sign languages are different. We have enough challenges living in a bilingual environment as it is.

In reality it is not a joke.

After the test, I realized how often I missed part of what people said to me. I blamed accents, French, masks.

Today we were at our favorite café and were joined by friends we hadn't seen since pre-covid. I know my husband has said it is even harder when he is in a group to hear. It was the first time, I was aware of the problem for myself. Before I would have chalked it up to French being spoken on my right, English on my left, the buzz from tables nearby and the musicians playing Summertime and other songs at the edge of the terrace. 

I found myself concentrating, looking at lips, trying to drown out the speech of everyone whom I was not talking directly to. 

At some level, I had realized and sympathized with the problems my husband had. Like many situations one can have empathy and understanding at a certain level, but until one experiences it for themselves, it can never reach the same depth of comprehension.

Having survived cancer twice, I can't say I'm frantic about the loss of hearing.  Compared to all the other things that could go wrong with my body as I age, it is minor. It is more of an annoyance. 

I need to consider if I want hearing aids. Many friends who have them have not felt they are that helpful. My husband is one of them.

I can continue to say, excuse me, repeat please, excusez-moi, repetez, s'il vous plaît.

I know bilingual couples who have to work harder to understand what the other one is saying. We'll have to do that. Mostly, I need to continue to support my husband and to work continually that we can communicate on the important and unimportant things.