The art of hearing: She said

My husband and I have already decided on the epitaph for our combined gravestone. It will read: “Talking together again.”

When I married Tony 28 years ago, my friends who had married strong, silent guys envied me the catch of a “verbal man.”

So when Tony’s hearing began deteriorating more than a decade ago, I did not react well. I felt angry, frustrated and sad.

You don’t read much about the grief associated with hearing loss, for the people experiencing it and those who love them.

I’m still in the mad-sad phase of this unique grief, a long way from acceptance.

The rules of verbal engagement Tony and I lived by in the first half of our marriage – talk and be heard at all times – have changed dramatically in this second half of our marriage.

I can no longer yell at Tony from another room to come look at something. I can no longer talk to him while he’s cooking, because the stove fan drowns me out. I must face him directly to be heard.

In my younger years as a reporter, when I called older men to interview them for stories, their wives often picked up the extension. To censor the comments, I thought then. Now I realize these wives were helping their husbands hear, because they repeated my questions in loud voices.

I vowed never to be one of those irritating wives. But I am.

Tony can hear pretty well on phones, but for important calls, such as setting up doctor’s appointments, we put our home phone on the speaker setting. When the scheduler asks for Tony’s birth date, and he doesn’t hear the question, I yell: “Your birth date! Your birth date!”

The young schedulers on the other end of the line are likely rolling their eyes, thinking: “Oh no, another screaming wife.”

I am luckier than many wives whose husbands are losing their hearing. I didn’t have to nag Tony about hearing aids. He got fitted for them as soon as hearing tests revealed a deficit.

He wears his hearing aids almost all the time, but hearing aids, no matter how expensive, approximate human hearing about as well as a computer writes poetry. Our inner ear is a poem in miniature.

Tony also purchased state-of-the-art television headphones, eliminating that obnoxious TV blaring sound common in homes where people cannot hear well.

Recently, I asked him to quit saying “Huh?” because it irritated me so much. I asked him to substitute “Excuse me, dear?”

I meant it as a joke, but the phrase has caught on with him, and it makes me laugh, easing the tension at not being heard.

My grief over Tony’s hearing loss is exacerbated by the fact my 92-year-old mother also wears hearing aids, and my “beat” now at the newspaper – aging boomers and seniors – means that I sometimes scream my way through interviews.

Recently, I delivered the eulogy for a family friend who died in her 80s. The acoustics were not great, and so I spoke ultra loud into the microphone. Several older men came up to me afterward and said they didn’t hear a word.

When I go to restaurants with Tony or my mother, or both, I am instantly on alert. Will they be able to hear? Recently, my mom and I ate lunch at a new restaurant that’s generating a lot of buzz. The design is trendy, edgy, with high ceilings and an open kitchen.

The food is superb, but the acoustics are terrible. The chef was using a blender – clear across the restaurant, but it rendered impossible conversation at our table.

A few years ago, I had my hearing tested and was told: “You have the hearing of a child.”

Likely, this won’t always be so, because heredity is one factor in hearing loss.

Assaults to the ears also erode hearing. In high school, college and in my 20s, I attended a lot of concerts and dances. We all noted how our ears buzzed for about 24 hours afterward. We found it amusing. No more.

Watch Rebecca Nappi talk with KHQ’s Kenneth McGrath about this story.

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Recently, while driving with a great-nephew, I asked him a question from the front seat. I didn’t hear his answer.

“What honey?”

He repeated the question.

“What honey?”

He sighed, exasperated.

“Aunt Becky, how come your ears don’t work so good?”

They actually work pretty good, for now. But if they go from good to bad, I feel gratitude for my husband, my mother and others who accept their loss, use hearing aids and still venture out into a world filled with people, like me, impatient with the word “huh?”