“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” my dad asked for the third time. The line at the bookstore was growing at an alarming pace. Six, seven, eight people were waiting behind us now, more agitated by the minute.
It was Dad’s first day out of the house after suddenly losing much of his hearing three months before. The doctor said it was probably a combination of Meniere’s disease and autoimmune inner ear disease–a stress-related disease in which your immune system mistakes your good hearing cells for being unhealthy and attacks them. The disease often leads to a total loss of hearing. It is not well understood, and there’s no known cure.
The loss of Dad’s hearing was not only a challenge that he had to overcome, but a challenge for everyone in the family. I was only thirteen at the time, but I quickly started to understand firsthand how the world treats people who have disabilities.
We had to learn to compensate for Dad’s hearing loss in all possible ways. He couldn’t use the phone without special equipment. He couldn’t understand us if we were not facing him. We learned to talk louder and more clearly and how to help him when he couldn’t hear. We always put the closed captioning on the screen when we watched TV and movies. At home we adjusted our lives in hundreds of other ways, and even more in helping him deal with others….
Watching Dad struggle with the cashier was painful. He was wearing a prominent pair of powerful new hearing aids, but he still did not hear very well. Usually so strong and confident, he suddenly seemed anxious and lost. “We’ll take that one,” I said, taking charge. Dad looked at me, surprised, but then suddenly realized I was taking care of it.
This was the first of many times I would step up to help my father the way he has helped me all my life. In the nearly five years since then, Dad has started to learn speech reading and the many other tricks that deaf and hard-of-hearing people need to know to get along in the world. He has even restarted his career as a communications consultant, of all things.
My family and I met and overcame one of our biggest challenges. Through it, I learned what growing up was all about. It wasn’t being the captain of my basketball team or the best student in my class. It’s what happens when you’re faced with an unexpected situation and you meet the challenge, the way my dad has dealt with his hearing loss. It’s what happens when you stand up for someone else, not only for yourself, in his or her time of need. My dad was courageous enough to step out that day, and I was proud to be able to stand up with him and for him.