Because We Can - Fulltime RV'ing



 

I Can Hear Clearly Now

 

I can hear clearly now, the pain is gone,
I can hear all the sounds comin' my way
Gone is the silence that led me astray
It’s gonna be a loud, loud, loud, loud Wonderful day.
Yes, it will be a loud, loud, loud, loud Wonderful day.

Oh yes, I can hear it now, the pain is gone
And all the lost meanings have disappeared
Hearin' the low sounds I’d missed before
It’s gonna be a loud loud, loud, loud, loud Wonderful day.

Hear all around, there’s nothin' but real sounds
Even 'round my head, nothin' but real sounds.

I can hear clearly now, the pain is gone,
I can hear all the sounds comin' my way
Gone is the silence that led me astray
It’s gonna be a loud, loud, loud, loud Wonderful day.
It’s gonna be a real real, real real Wonderful day.
Oh yes, Today's a real, loud, loud, loud Wonderful day.

 

For anyone who might have picked up a rhythm to those verses, but can't quite make the connection, here's a hint - Johnny Nash 1972.

Words, they're what I write, but for some forty and seven years, something has been missing. Not words meant to be read, rather, words meant to be heard. Buried deep in the pages of a wonderful book, the world came alive in new and different ways. Outside those pages the world was a different place, a world filled with muffled conversations, missed opportunities and things not heard.

It happened when I was a teenager, it was nothing I did, it just was. It was the German measles, or more accurately, an extremely high fever accompanying the measles which resulted in the use of a big word by our doctor, a word I came to know as the years rolled by, sensorineural. When you're a teenager words like that mean very little. Over the years I've lived with it, it being nerve damage, irreversible nerve damage. The thing I have lived with is the fact that it not only involved a reduction in my ability to hear sounds, it also affected my ability to clearly hear speech, often resulting in difficultly understanding people.

How many times over the years had this inability to either understand what had been said, or the the complete ignorance of what was said, never having heard it in the first place, altered my life? I'll never know, and even if I did, it wouldn't change what happened. In those early years I was told that I would just have live with it, and as I got older it would probably become worse. Words that proved quite prophetic.

Eventually improvements in technology meant that a solution was available, but by this time I had become so used to my world of hearing that it was my new normal. Vanity also played a major role, I thought of myself as being too young to be wearing a hearing aid, or putting it bluntly, I didn't want to look old, placing appearance above function. Every decade or so Linda would suggest that I get something done, but in my world of my normal I wasn't that hard of hearing.

Fortunately for me, Linda knew just how difficult it was living with someone who only understands part of what has been said. After we returned form Europe this summer her mild protestations turned into ever escalating confrontations. I couldn't figure out why she was getting so upset, yes I was a bit hard of hearing, but I most certainly did not ask her to repeat 90% of what she said, as she so emphatically put it.

Then came one of those so-called chance encounters that is more than just fate; time spent with someone who was a long time wearer of hearing aids. Someone with whom I'd discussed his and my hearing problems in the past. This time the difference was he had just purchased a new set of hearing aids and simply couldn't stop talking about how great they were.

Our guide in our Life is Sara N. Dippity. Linda has a favorite saying, "All things happen for a reason." This was one of those times to again remember the words that my dear, wonderful great aunt, Aunt Fern used as she gave her love and wisdom to a little boy. "May I have the ability to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

For once in my life I realized I did know the difference, and several days later it was a difference in more ways than one. Now Linda has a new problem, it's not that I have to ask her to repeat everything, it's that I keep asking her if she just heard the sound or voices what I had just heard. Mostly she just smiles, says, "Yes, and they've always been there, you just never heard them." But every once in a while she's says she didn't hear what I had just heard, but then later does hear it. Those are the moments that make my day.

I can hear clearly now, the pain is gone,
I can hear all the sounds comin' my way
Gone is the silence that led me astray
It’s gonna be a loud, loud, loud, loud Wonderful day.
It’s gonna be a real real, real real Wonderful day.
Oh yes, Today's a real, loud, loud, loud Wonderful day.

 

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Bob & Linda