2007 - Vol. 4, Issue 3

My youngest sister walks through my front door, laughing. Apparently, the song I have playing on the TV's music channel, which I read is a New Kids on the Block tune, is considered "old." I hadn't realized the song was even playing, despite wearing a hearing aid that allows filtered noise to be "heard." I'd been busy cleaning house and playing the music for my daughter, a 2–year–old contentedly playing with her toys on the floor.

The music channel of choice? The 80s music, of course. It was in 1987 that I lost my hearing from spinal meningitis, and now all I remember are the songs I grew up singing and dancing to. With a country singer like Patsy Cline in the family tree and a songwriter responsible for the famous song "Waltz Me to Heaven" as my grandfather, you can bet music plays on in future generations — even if my world means that music is never heard.

Now all I have are the memories of music: Coming home from school many times to find my older sister dancing to "Stayin' Alive"; my older brother booming his favorite Johnny Horton songs, like "The Battle of New Orleans" and "North to Alaska"; my dad turning up the volume as he played his favorite Gatlin Brothers song, "All the Gold in California." My mother loved the Beatles, so she often played songs like "Let it Be," "Come Together," and "Eight Days a Week." Another sibling liked Billy Joel, blaring songs like "An Innocent Man" and "Tell Her About It."

And me? I was a Beach Boys nut, constantly playing songs like "Surfin' USA" and "California Girls." Other favorites were John Cougar Mellencamp, Michael Jackson, and The Police. Every song we played had us dancing and singing our hearts out. Car trips meant singing to songs like "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler and "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" by Starship.

I ignore my sister's teasing over the song playing on the TV and don't change the channel. I know this song in some way, but not how I knew all the others that played on this channel. This particular song was introduced to me after I lost my hearing, when I wore a hearing aid and could hear the "sound" of music but couldn't understand what tunes played. Was a guitar being strummed? A keyboard being tapped on? And what did a synthesizer sound like? My deaf world still had music in it, but just barely. My sisters and younger brother understood the burning desire within me to hear music again, even if I couldn't even hear on the phone. Because I had some hearing left, wearing headphones helped me to "hear" music. If I could pick up on the singer's voice, I was golden, because I had their lyrics right in front of me to try to sing along with. When I couldn't hear their voice? I just got used to "hearing" the music, straining with the headphones as indecipherable noise crept into my ears. Watching music videos with closed captioning helped, too. My parents, sympathetic to my music struggles, allowed for the volume to be turned up with certain music videos playing on TV. I read the lyrics as the musicians sang, and somehow the TV volume helped me to catch on to noises associated with the songs. There was the piano being keyed. There's a drum beating now. And, yes, that was indeed a guitar being strummed.

The hearing aid wasn't the cure to my "musical deafness" but it did help keep music alive in my life. I was able to "hear" songs like "Come As You Are" by Nirvana, "Unforgiven" by Metallica, and "Cannonball" by the Cranberries. I'd often drive through the California desert, blaring Nine Inch Nails or 4 Non Blondes from my car radio.

Later, even after I lost more hearing, I kept music front and center in my world. I still played songs on the radio, even if they were hard to "hear" now. After my child was born in 2001, I'd put the music channel on TV for her so she could enjoy this thing called "music" that my whole childhood revolved around. I'd rock her to sleep singing her lullabies, with the occasional 60s or 80s song thrown in for good measure. I knew these tunes by heart and had no trouble slipping over the lyrics. If I forgot a single word, I'd jump on the Internet to look up the lyrics. I remembered the music, and that was enough to keep it alive.

When I lost more hearing later on and, for some strange reason even later, my ear started "rejecting" my hearing aid, I was left in complete silence, with no artificial tunes to keep me company the way they used to. I had no sound at all. I no longer had any kind of music in my life. My world was completely and utterly silent. I was a "true deafie," with no hearing aid or any other kind of assistive–listening device to help me cling to that part of my life. I cried. I felt depressed. I yearned to hear that liberating music just one last time.

Soon enough, I'd forgotten what it was like to even "hear" music. I'd forgotten the kind of magic music could make you feel just by hearing it or singing it.

Singing, however, is what helped me to win back that "magic of music." I don't even know what kind of singing voice I have, but that doesn't stop me from singing all of my favorite songs from when I was growing up. I sing as I take long drives, on the nights I can't sleep, and whenever I am bored and have nothing else to do. It isn't the same as hearing the songs, but singing still brings to me a sense of "escape" and raw emotion that I also got out of hearing those songs from so long ago.

I realize that other people who are deaf use a different way of including music in their lives. They feel the vibrations on the speakers. I remember watching Children of a Lesser God and wondering how on Earth the girl managed to sing and understand music she felt on the speakers, because I sure haven't managed to figure that one out. There's so much involved in a song: There's drums, synthesizers, guitars, and other musical instruments. I have never understood how to feel something that I can't hear and translate it into some kind of tune. What kind of instrument is being played? Is anybody singing? I sure can't feel any voices coming from those speakers. What does a voice even feel like?

Singing is my way of "feeling" music again. So many years have gone by since I last heard a song playing — something I'm reminded of when I can no longer remember how a song went or what the words were. But remembering some of the songs from my past, old favorites I can remember being played every day, allows me to feel that "musical magic" again and again.

That's what I feel now, despite my sister's opinion over how "old" a certain band or song is. So what if it's old? This is one song I actually knew. That's why I smile and say, "That's a good song!" Then turn up the volume, just for old times' sake.