Deafness is hitting home...

No, not me. (Although I may appear to you as hard of hearing. I wrote a long blog entry, a few months ago).

No, it's about... my dad.

Since he has Alzheimer, getting to know with the disease, one of the things it does, it affects the mood. It isn't just all about memory recollections. Far from it, in fact.

So when we saw the first signs, we all thought, me first, that he was playing games on us. "Don't want to listen, don't want to talk, I'm in my bubble, and that's that." Okay dokay...

I had some suspicions. But I had to battle. "Oh, you know, your dad isn't young, it's kind of normal to be a bit deaf". I've heard that many times.

Mhhhh... I had a hunch there has to be something else. My mom too it isn't buying that argument.

Well, today the results are in. Left ear: Completely deaf, and there's serious hearing loss for his right ear.

Sigh...

When you see someone slowly fading away... and that someone is 50% of you... There's _that_ shock.

Then... it comes quickly obvious that there's a very something that becomes paramount as times go by: Communication. When he's with us...

To the point you look forward, for *those* times that he's with us.

Tonight, it seems that I've been robbed.

A wall of silence is getting established between us.

Sure, a lot can be conveyed with touch. We're warm blood creatures, with feelings... touches and feelings...

Visually too. From body language to sign language, yeah I know all that...

So, there are ways to side-step silence.

But nonetheless...

Sigh...

-E