“You remember what we talked about the other night? My friend … walking … grass … told his dad? And then … Instagram? Yeah, well, it really scared him.”

“Sorry – can you repeat that please?”

My son obliges, repeating the portions of the original story I had already understood.

“Yeah, I got that part. What was the stuff in the middle – about the grass and his dad?” I ask impatiently. I am keenly aware that I am at the point of annoying him.

And so it goes, until I am frustrated beyond belief and he is completely disgruntled. The flow of the conversation has been totally disrupted and the meaning of the original observation has been long-since lost.

Why is this happening? Because I am losing my hearing. It started imperceptibly, but recently it has become far more obvious to me.

I am far too familiar with the ebb and flow of this disconcerting disrupted dialogue, from missing words to completely misunderstood run-together phrases. For years I was on the receiving end of having to repeat my statements and clarify my comments for my father, who also lost his hearing relatively early. I recall being present at a party my parents were hosting for their friends and participating in a conversation with my father and one of his guests. It was clear to me from his off-base responses that he wasn’t clearly following the thread of the discussion. At some point it became apparent to him as well, so he made some irrelevant concluding comment, followed it with a wink and a smile, and then walked away to find some new victim. I recall cringing with embarrassment and wishing yet again that he would go get a hearing aid.

Later it was my mother who seemed to be losing her hearing. After hectoring my father for years to get a hearing test, she was equally reluctant to go. After pressure from her kids and (ironically) her husband – who had by now conceded to hearing correction – she finally gave in and got tested. She came home crowing, rubbing it in our noses that there was nothing wrong with her hearing. The rest of us were dismayed: if my mother’s lack of comprehension wasn’t connected to hearing loss, we knew she had a deeper (neurological) problem. Sadly this turned out to be the case. We could only wish that in her case hearing aids would have solved the problem.

As for my situation, the reason I am losing my hearing isn’t immediately obvious. I didn’t attend rock concerts while young nor did I blast pop music through headphones turned up at too great a volume. While I did sing in choirs for years, it wasn’t often that I stood too closely to the trombones or timpani, so that wasn’t the cause either. I’ve always worked in an office environment where the loudest sounds were colleagues speaking on the phone or clicking away at their keyboards. Certainly photocopiers and fax machines couldn’t be the cause.

The sad truth is that I do know the cause of my hearing loss. My father always blamed his poor hearing on medication he took to combat the tuberculosis he contracted in his early twenties (apparently this medication also explained his hair loss!). Perhaps there was some truth in this circumstance, but the fact remains that there was a history of hearing loss in his family. After all, a man whose grandfather was known as “The Deaf Stonemason” in his small town is condemned to suffer from hearing loss! And so am I, as the great-granddaughter of the same ancestor. At this point, I can only hope that it is simply hearing loss and not the beginning of some neurological issue like my mother’s.

So why am I so reluctant to remedy a problem that I clearly know I have? To be fair, I did go for a hearing test several years ago. The test showed there was hearing loss present, but I was relieved to be informed that I hadn’t reached the threshold to require hearing correction. Yet. I’m quite certain that if I returned today, the answer would be a different one.

By persisting in my deafness, will I soon become wise? Not likely — just more isolated from the pleasures of free-flowing conversation and the goodwill of my family and friends. So why exactly am I dragging my heels, just as my father did before me? There is the expense, of course – the hearing aids, the batteries, the cost of replacement when they are lost or simply fail. Then there is the need to be fitted and have adjustments made – just one more trip to a medical professional to add into my schedule. While hearing aid technology is constantly improving, my father always maintained that wearing a hearing aid was like listening from inside an iron barrel, so I worry about the quality of the sound I may experience. But ultimately my resistance is about sheer vanity – a reluctance to put on display to the world that my hearing is defective, showcasing my age and pending infirmity. I like to flatter myself that if this were happening twenty years in the future, I would be more amenable to obtaining the help.

As for my father, his hearing aid became his best friend and trusted ally. Nothing annoyed him more than when the batteries died or the device needed maintenance. And nothing annoyed his family more than dealing with the irritable, deaf man he became without a working hearing aid. The period he spent in hospital after they lost his hearing aid was sheer agony for everyone concerned. It was bad enough that he was ill and confused, but shouting at him in these circumstances just made the situation feel even worse.

I realize, of course, that my hearing loss is only one of a litany of card-carrying privileges of growing older. The reading glasses arrived several years ago and I have long since accepted this necessary evil. I hope that I won’t be as stubborn and foolish as my parents were when it comes time to begin using a cane or walker. Judging by my approach to my hearing problem, I’m sure history will repeat itself. Just nod your head if you agree.