Listen with Your Ears

Listening with my heart was a blessing. But without functioning ears, unheard spoken words couldn't reach the heart.  

Listening with my ears had been on a standstill for over three years. My pair of hearing aids, a gift from son #2, had a lifespan of five years, and the cheap one I bought after that did more harm than good.

Not hearing well impacts daily life intensely. I could not engage with friends and family, especially in noisy environments. I got lost in conversation threads. Worse, I misunderstood them.  My mantra was, “What was that again?” 

I missed important sounds like phone calls, doorbells, and alarms.  I could not hear the message on Sundays, the questions and testimonies of those in Sunday School, which I facilitated. I gave up classroom teaching. I shunned social events. 

Once and for all, I decided to not let my dead ears dampen the joy of my remaining years. But the cost was a total rip-off.  I was loathe to impose on my sons again.  

Unexpectedly, grace arrived in a manner I would never have thought possible.

To the Hearing Aid Center I went. Two hours of consultation and various tests later,  “Come and pick up your new ears in two days,” the audiologist said. But first I had to pay in full.

January 21.

Coincidentally, it was the date last year when life began without my roommate of 54 years.

As soon as the audiologist fitted my hearing aids, my heart and ears both listened! 

From that day forward, I could hear the subtlest of sounds: birds chirping, trees swaying, leaves murmuring, cats purring, bees buzzing, footsteps hurrying, phone ringing, alarm blaring, doorbell chiming, keyboard clicking, water flowing, rain falling, clock ticking, plus a trillion more sounds that stood silent in my ears for years.

“What was that again?” has left my lexicon.

I am a new me. Every day is a time for thanksgiving.