Say Again?

I am looking at my calendar and I am not seeing any days off until Labor Day.

Which is kind of a drag because I have so enjoyed my time away from cubeland since the beginning of May.  I am sort of use to that now.  On the other hand, when I am not at work, the paycheck suffers, so full paychecks will be nice, and work well toward helping with today’s Big Expense.

Today...I buy myself SSABs (aka hearing aids). I have grown to detest the common term, so Eldest and I came up with the more palatable (to me) term SuperSonic Auditory Boosters.  I can live with that.

So. SSABs.

It has been a long time coming, and I have migrated through my family being irritated with me not catching what they are saying, to being solicitous when we are in public together and I am stumped at what the server is asking of me.  I am at the point of often not being able to rely on non-verbal signals to pick up what others are saying, and end up just staring at them.  Or anwering them totally off topic.  Yeah.  That works.  Often TV shows are a total wash.  The volume has to be too loud for me to get all the conversation.

Pretty embarrassing.

I won’t go to the fear about the possibility of considering a job interview.

So after much ado and time, I started the actual talking to audiologists and shopping.  It was truly painful…until I tried a pair…and I heard sounds and low voices and tones I hadn’t heard in years.

Brought tears to my eyes.  And pretty much settled it for me.

Vanity is out the door.  And somehow we would figure out a way to pay for them, but I was going to get myself a pair of those, and I was going to be able to hear birds again.

Brief aside, most insurance companies do not cover hearing loss, or hearing aids.  Nope.  Footing the entire bill for this one.  I could smoke, and they would pay my bills for lung cancer and heart disease.  I could drink and they would pay for my liver disease.  I could eat my way into obesity and they would pay for my diabetes treatment and related issues.  I’m not judging…I’m just saying…but I digress.

SSABs of today are not the hearing aids of yesteryear.  Mine will be programmed to my hearing loss, to emphasize what I cannot hear and leave alone the frequencies that I can. Pretty much awesome from where I sit right now.  I hope it is going to be all I hope it is going to be.

I hope the sound of eating chips doesn’t freak me out.  I hope that the sound of my own voice isn’t so loud I quit talking.  I want to hear birds again (I still hear meadowlarks and morning doves and finches, but miss so many others) but I know there are lots of really irritating sounds I don’t hear right now that’s probably for the good.  Along with the good will come the irritating, I suppose.  I wonder if I will hear everyone in cubeland typing.  People aren’t going to be able to sneak up on me anymore because I can’t hear them!

Tomorrow is going to be a new day, full of surprises.

I wonder if anyone will notice.

My Hometown

My mother's family homesteaded just a few miles southeast of Greensburg, Kansas at the turn of the last century. I was born in the local hospital, and spent my grade school years there. All my family, from my grandfather's generation through my older siblings, graduated from Greensburg High School. I learned to ride a bike around the Big Well Park. I won a Grand Champion ribbon for a sewing project in 4-H at the County Fair one year. Momma taught knitting classes in the back room of the Ben Franklin 'Five&Dime' on Main Street. (That's where I learned to knit.)

On May 4, 2007, a EF-5 tornado all but destroyed this town where I was born and raised.

Just the night before, my sibs and I had been discussing the possibilities of meeting in Greensburg to inter my mother's ashes around Memorial Day. She passed away 2 years before, and her memorial service took place elsewhere. We siblings are a spread out crew, and hadn't managed a time to get back to our hometown to bury Momma's ashes with Daddy. Now it looked promising with certain travel plans and arrangements that we could all be there over Memorial Day.

Friday night, while watching TV, I got a phone call from my brother saying it looked like Greensburg was getting hit by a tornado. Being raised in southwestern Kansas, my experiences with tornadoes were of those skinny little funnels that dip and touch and raise and hit and miss. As the events were unfolding real-time, it was very difficult that night to get any definite news, but as the story developed, it appeared this tornado didn't miss much. Almost two miles wide, it covered pretty much the entire town.

When I woke Saturday morning, I grabbed a cup of coffee, and turned on the national news. I was stunned. As the weekend developed, Dearest Sister and I spent time on the phone, each on our own computer, looking at the aerial photographs, trying to identify landmarks. It seemed in each photo the house where we grew up was just outside the shot. (We found out later the back part of the house was damaged, with the roof, and later had to be demolished.)

We were able to take care of Momma over Memorial Day weekend,burying her ashes 48 years to the day after my father died. It was going to be just Mom's kids, a couple of nieces and nephew, and some grandkids at the cemetary, but word had gotten out. Others started showing up, and kept coming. When it was time for us to say our good-byes, there were twenty or so other people there, some who had lost a good deal, who had a lot of unanswered questions about what they were going to do. Nevertheless, they came to say good-bye to this woman who had been a part of their community years before.

I read an article today that the residents of Greensburg have been named Distinguished Kansans of the Year. Some left after the tornado, but many stayed, and are determined to rebuild, whatever it takes, and to do it up right. And that is right, and good, and I am so proud.

But the town I grew up in is only in my memories.