This “good ear” over the years lost the ability to process sound. After my retirement and a serious illness that left me more deaf, my wife, Bridget became my ears at times — when using the telephone was difficult, and driving.
I had worn ever more powerful hearing aids for nearly forty years.
I decided that my only hope for hearing of some kind was to have a cochlear implant. There are two specialists who do this operation in West Virginia, both of whom have high recommendations. This operation requires a meticulous and highly skilled surgeon. Both fellows were equally capable, but one worked just fifty miles from our Charleston, W.Va. home. Huntington was our destination.
Life was a waiting period. Every sound was enclosed on cotton wool. I was severely deaf.
The operation would cost me the small remaining part of my natural hearing, and for a month I would live in a great silence. I hoped the silence would end with the activation of the implant, and something like hearing. I did not expect to hear naturally again.
After surgery I was indeed bereft of all sound. Smiling faces greeted me, and mouths moved in such a way that I was able to make sense of much that was said. A short stay in the discharge area, and we were on our way back to Charleston, for what was a relatively pain-free recovery.
In spite of the silence, recovery was less fearful than I had expected. A laptop computer, some sign language, and finger spelling supplemented speech reading and written notes.
I vowed to make good use of this time, and I did in some ways. I wrote. I attended worship. Despite the difficulty of understanding worship with no hearing, I found that it was a spiritual task to follow the hymns with the help of Bridget tapping out the beat. The creed, the intercessions, the responses, all were accompanied by the kind of physical movement one finds in a liturgical service. When the Episcopal service begins, the minister makes the sign of the cross and says: “Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” I could respond: “And blessed be God’s kingdom, now and for ever.” I would silently mouth the Collect for Purity without any need to look at the Prayer Book, “Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open … .” During the Gloria in Excelsis, Bridget would take a pointer, and rhythmically let it march across the pages of the hymnal, allowing me to sing in my heart, and to hear these melodies in my inner self.
Some things were difficult, but people were willing to help me. The Associate Rector, Ann, visiting me in my home, was perfectly willing to “talk” to me on the laptop, and the prayers she offered were known to me. One of my close friends came over to the house and conversed with me about New Testament scholarship from his standpoint as an informed layman and attorney, all by computer. A minister friend sat with the laptop in front of him, sharing his thoughts.
I thought of the Grand Silence in the monastic tradition. At a certain time, in some religious communities, no words are spoken. All effort is made to be in the presence of God, to whom, indeed, all hearts are open and to whom all desires were known, without any hearing or speech needed.
I would not trade this time, nor would I wish its repetition, either.
After a month, we headed to Huntington again, this time to activate the electronics buried in my head, and resting on my outer ear. What would I hear? How would things sound?
Anxiety ruled.
I could not have predicted that I would hear the tones sent to me over the implant’s external parts. I could hear tiny “beeps” clearly. Then the audiologist spoke and I heard her, not quite naturally, but very clearly. My wife spoke to me, and knew that I had heard her after a period of many months when I could barely perceive her beautiful voice. She immediately broke into tears. I was dazed. This could not be happening. Was Jesus there, shouting “Ephphatha?” (Mark 7:34). The audiologist, a young mother, was Jesus for me at that moment. The surgeon was not there to witness my joy, and my wonder. In a week, I aced the test of word recognition. All the physician could say was: “Awesome.”
The crows and blue jays now vie for attention in the trees. Cicadas and related species sing away. A flick of a switch on my ear-mounted word processor (which looks like a large hearing aid) enables me to talk with my wife in the car, as if we were almost in the quiet of a living room.
To have entered the Great Silence and moved from it to hearing and understanding is certainly worth a Doxology or a dozen of them. I still have learning to do. Some tasks are harder than others. The telephone is still troubling. Worship is wonderful. Human voices are very clear.
With all my thankfulness, I thought of those who cannot afford such a restoring of sound. What would I have done without Medicare? Some private insurance will not cover cochlear implants, considering them just another kind of hearing aid. The American people, through Medicare dues, were a multitude calling out: “Ephphatha”. What of those not so lucky to be so old as I am?
I dedicate this essay to my wife, Bridget Louise Posey, to my audiologist of thirty years, Dr. Gary Harris, and the staff of Tri-State Otolaryngology.
Lawton W. Posey is a retired Presbyterian Church (U. S. A.) minister living in Charleston, W.Va.
