Can you hear me, honey?

My husband did a terrific job of writing about his hearing loss today . He’s a retired English professor, and I loved best this scene he wrote about from Great Expectations.

Mr. Wemmick is a character from Dickens’ “Great Expectations” who has a seriously hearing-impaired father he calls The Aged Parent or Aged P. Wemmick expresses his affection for the Aged P by giving him a sound he can hear. He enacts a “great nightly ceremony” with his father by firing off a cannon that’s loud enough to blow him out of his armchair. “He’s fired. I heerd him,” shouts the Aged P “exultingly.”

I wrote about Tony’s hearing loss from a wife’s point of view. Read here.

We started out thinking these essays would have more humor in them, but we realized it has been a bigger loss not being able to talk with one another without Tony wearing hearing aids and me facing him.

(S-R staff illustration by Molly Quinn)