Akiva Mandel, his wife, and his daughter speak candidly about the many facets of life with hearing loss
Part of it is because growing up, my father’s hearing aids were nothing more than a fact of life. Mommy wears a sheitel. I wear glasses. Tatty has hearing aids. They were another piece of furniture, something we passed every day without paying attention.
We discussed them only in practical conversation. We knew that trips to Costco meant stocking up on the tiny yellow #10 batteries. We knew that the subtle whistling was the sound that the little pieces made when my father put them in his ears.
We knew that after showering, before his ears dried out, my father walked around with close to no hearing at all. “I’m not plugged in,” he’d say and cup his ear. “Speak up.” And then we turned to face him, talked a little louder, and assumed he’d only catch every other word.
My father’s hearing impairment never made a difference in my life. He didn’t ask us to share the handicap with him, and we didn’t volunteer to. On the rare occasion my father mentioned missing something — at the Shabbos table when the simultaneous conversations about the devar Torah and community news required skilled navigation — I’d repeat it to him, slowly, in a tone that barely hid my impatience.
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