hearing-aid

2067 was the year that dreams came true. It also happened to be my sixty-seventh birthday, and I received a gift–an unbelievable gift of mercy. It took ten years to schedule, clear the red tape and find the right doctors, but I believed it was worth every minute, every dollar Heidi and I dumped into what she called my “Hearing Fund.”

I was the second baby born in the new millennium and unlike the first, I came out of the womb stone deaf. They explained to me that when I was born, I screamed louder than any baby they’d seen before. Of course it wasn’t until later that they realized I couldn’t hear the sound of my own voice, so I hollered like a person wearing headphones, not that I know what that’s like.

But I would.

The treatment I underwent was new and like the day I was born, I was second in line. The first to try it turned out to be less healthy than the first millennium baby, though. Doctors said he had some kind of disorder, something wrong in his mind that the operation triggered. They told me that what happened to him was an accident; that it had nothing to do with the procedure. I believed them, but I’ve never heard of suicide referred to as an accident.

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