Grandchildren are fun. Their small arms hug our necks, they like to take slow walks with us looking at every bug or bird, and because of them, we are allowed to act like children for the third time in our lives. The first chance to be a kid is obvious, the second was when our children were born, and now as we move into the “grand” role, we can act silly and nap in the afternoon again – and get away with it!
My hearing began to decline when I was a child. By the time my first grandchild arrived, I was wearing two high-tech hearing aids. I had also learned sign language and become an expert at reading lips and body language.
Of course, my hearing loss has never interfered with my love for my grandchildren Jacob (Jake), 7, Elizabeth (Libby), 5, and Andrew, 4. If they whispered something in my ear that I couldn’t understand, I simply hugged them. But by the time I was 50, I was really deaf and obviously that did interfere with their being able to tell Nana about their latest adventures, all their new jokes and why the occasional tear.
I was a candidate for a cochlear implant (CI). “Do it now!” was my plea. “I want to hear my grandchildren.”
I got my CI in 2002 and it has restored 94 percent of my hearing and understanding in one ear – not perfect but a significant improvement. Now my grandchildren know to whisper in my right ear. (I still hug them.)
What I call my ear-level device (my CI processor) looks like a behind-the-ear hearing aid and has 12 different colors for the cover. Andrew always picks orange and Libby pink. Jake coordinates with what I am wearing. They love to see it dangle from my head when I remove it from behind my ear and it doesn’t fall off because of the magnet. I am quite sure they like having Bionic Nana around.
As they grow from babies into their school-age years, I have been figuring out day by day how to communicate with my grandkids. It helps that my daughter Mary and son-in-law Bobby are patient and loving.
No one with hearing loss or any special need wants to burden his/her family. Mine accepted my hearing loss long before I did; it simply became a part of our lives. An elegant example of this is how Mary taught Baby Sign to all three of “my lovelies.” She told me she wanted them to be able to communicate with Nana. Imagine my joy.
As babies, Jake and Andrew were very active but quieter than their sister. My namesake Elizabeth definitely knew how to use her voice to get our attention. One time she was lying on the couch letting out a deafening cry. All of a sudden, the clamor stopped. I turned to the others and said, “There! She stopped.” Everyone looked puzzled.
I turned back to Libby and she was still crying. I was confused because I heard nothing. Had my batteries died?
I burst into laughter when I realized my hearing aids, a pair still new to me at the time, had a buffer that automatically shut down at dangerous decibel levels. When the buffer released, I heard everyone else laughing too. They knew what was happening.
Kindnesses and experiences like these helped me lose my apprehensions about grandparenting with hearing loss. But there are some special challenges to interacting with your loved ones, particularly the little ones, when you are deaf or hard-of-hearing.
Children have high and soft voices that are difficult to understand. But I remember Jake, Libby and Andrew making the effort to look at me to speak, even when they were very young. I can still hear Mary saying, “Look at Nana.” Sometimes their tiny hands would gently touch my face to have me turn my head toward them. We were all learning to communicate.
Like most grandparents, I wanted to baby-sit for my grandchildren so their parents could go on a date or do some shopping. But would I hear them when they woke from a nap or called out? In time, these concerns diminished. The children rarely left my side and Pappy (my husband Bob) was always there when they were babies. Jake has learned to come to me and say things like, “Andrew is climbing on the counter, Nana.” As is usually true, teamwork helps solve any problems.
My grandchildren and I have discovered that we can enjoy all the usual things, sometimes in creative and unique ways. We have had tea parties with Libby’s miniature tea set and built things with Jake’s Legos. We spend time swinging, reading, drawing and coloring and hours at parks on picnics. We perform plays and puppet shows. I was a musician before deafness and I love music. So do they and we dance together even if I can only feel the beat.
Hearing is not required for me to spray them with the hose on hot days, make cookies and cakes and watch them as they learn to read. I don’t need to use my hearing to bathe and feed babies or rock them to sleep … or to take naps with them, of course! And who wants to hear when changing diapers?
I have learned to laugh at myself and let the others know when I just don’t get it. We sometimes use pen and paper and simple signs for “food,” “play,” “drink,” “sick,” “music” and their favorite, “more,” where they place all their fingers together and tap their fingertips to the other hand. They giggled when I first showed the sign for “two more,” which is the same action and then quickly popping up two fingers.
Nana is a typical grandma, digital camera never far from reach. After I take a picture, they look and tell me whether I should keep it or not. Jake has an interest in photography and a keen eye. He also loves making things and figuring out how things work.
Andrew loves to talk on the phone, especially to Pappy, and thinks snails are cool, drums sound great and anything taller than he is was built to climb. Libby loves anything pink, ballet, singing, crayons, books and dolls. She can also be found playing in the dirt, climbing trees and biking down the street in a flash!
My son-in-law has a hillside garden – beautiful year round. One day the grown-ups were sitting in the yard while the children found their way to the sugar snap pea vines and repeatedly shouted over the wind, “Can I have another one?” Mary and I agreed we could never say “no” to a child wanting vegetables.
My lovelies enjoy helping me bake bread and getting their hands all doughy. Whenever I visit, I bake, they help and we eat. Odd how I always feel pudgier but they don’t. Apparently only watching them run burns no calories.
Mealtime is a perfect venue for chatting. Libby often asks me for a story and I rev up my memory and tell stories of their mother’s childhood and my own. I promised Libby I would write stories and mail them to her so I started writing a series I call “Life on West Bank Farm.” It’s based on times at her great-grandmother’s farm in Ohio and the first story I sent Libby was about the farm’s history. Just this week I sent her “The Music Room.” When all the memories are captured in story form, I plan to have them bound in a book as a keepsake for us both.
Watching Jake, Libby and Andrew double over with laughter, even if I don’t know why, makes me laugh with them. Sometimes we literally roll on the floor. More chuckles follow as they hear Nana grunt softly while getting back up. Last summer we went to a beach. I had to hear the ocean so I kept my device on, realizing the risks of exposing it to salt water and sea breezes. The sound of the ocean was better than music to my ears.
While the children and I were gathering white rocks along the water’s edge, sure enough, the undertow pulled me down and my device and I were dunked in the salty waves. When they pulled me up, I could read my husband’s lips saying, “Reach into her shirt and get it out!” I knew he meant the device but his choice of words took me by surprise. A wet, sandy and deaf Nana, I put my eyes to work on the drive home to “hear” conversation. We all quickly dropped off to sleep anyway.
With careful cleaning and warm sunshine, the device was soon fine. And so was I.
No regrets. Life is full of small treasures – the best of them take the form of grandchildren.
Elizabeth Thompson lives in Glendale, Arizona, with her husband Bob while her grandchildren live with their parents in Southern California. A freelance writer, she was a “deaf” reporter for Suburban News Publications in Columbus, Ohio, and contributed the column “Day by Day” for more than six years. Elizabeth is now a community columnist for The Arizona Republic newspaper and book reviewer and chat host for www.MSWorld.org. She welcomes comments at writeon@earthlink.net.
