Do You Hear What I Hear?

“I don’t think there’s any shame in losing my hearing,” says Zelda*. Her blue eyes glint in the way they do when she is angry. She sits straighter and taller than the others, her white hair swooped from her face. She continues, “If I can’t hear someone, I just say, ‘Speak up!’ They should speak up. It’s normal to lose your hearing when you get old.” And again she says, “There’s no shame in it.”  She’s defiant, daring any us to contradict her.

Fifteen of us are in the Assisted Living facility’s theatre discussing Miller Williams’ poem “Going Deaf.” I lead this weekly poetry group, and we are again discussing issues of aging that a poem has raised.

Though I am 52 years old and these residents are decades older than I am, we have a good deal in common. Our lives—theirs and mine—are changing because of health issues: theirs, issues related to aging; and mine, disabilities that resulted from two brain tumors, four surgeries, and six weeks of radiation. Like many of my elders, I struggle with balance, so I walk with a cane. I don’t see well and need 20-point font to read. I’ve lost some of my hearing and wear a hearing aid, but sometimes I still can’t hear and might pretend I know what someone has said in order to continue the flow of a pleasant interaction. Like many of these residents, I have seen the eternal footman hold my coat and snicker. And I was not afraid. Our changing lives remind us all of our mortality, and we come together weekly to celebrate poetry and beauty in each wild and precious moment.

I’ve come to this facility as part of my degree program for a Masters in Social Work. Four years ago, when I left my job in high schools because my disabilities made me ineffective and—some thought—unsafe, I began looking to do work where I could again contribute to others’ lives, but now in a way that I could do effectively with my disabilities. I decided to learn to support people like me, people with life-changing health conditions.

I love this work. It’s an opportunity to help people connect with poetry and with each other, requiring skills and knowledge needed in my 27 years of working in high school Language Arts classes.

When I arrived at the facility this morning, I visited Maggie*, who remembers my name some weeks, and to whom on other weeks I look only vaguely familiar. When she came to the door today, she looked at me for aconcentrated moment, cocked her head, and said, “I know that you are familiar, and I believe I like you. Yes, I’m sure I like you, but I don’t remember you. When I told her my name and the important detail that we both love poetry, she said, “Please come in, and we can talk a while.”

Maggie was in a philosophical mood and talked about the ways that “Classical Freudian Psychotherapy” in her twenties changed her life. She’s had to learn to trust and forgive, and she began practicing at this time. She shared with me her learning: “Trust is the end of separation between you and another. It’s recognizing that we are one…. Forgiveness is the same…. It’s like breathing. It’s a practice. You don’t say, ‘I’ve already breathed today.’ You must practice and practice.”

After our talk, I went downstairs to set up the theatre where the poetry group meets, and then ate a quick lunch in the staff room, a walled off part of the garage in the basement that brings to mind the servant lunchroom in the t.v. show “Downton Abbey.”

Like my elders, my life has changed, and I am learning to live with the changes. Nine years ago, on May 8, 2007, I had neurosurgery to remove what my neurosurgeon called a slow growing but large, nasty brain tumor in a tight spot from my fourth ventricle and brain stem. Almost three years later, I had another fourth ventricle tumor, this one a baby the size of an ice chip that melted after six weeks of radiation like the Wicked Witch of the West.

I’ve had disabilities, especially fatigue, imbalance, and double-vision, since those treatments. Though I am grateful to live my one life, I now have disabilities that mean I live much differently than I did before: remembering that I can no longer work to earn a living wage, hike in the mountains nor travel the back roads of lands whose customs and languages are foreign to me makes my whole body tense with sadness. When I am outside, I am on high alert for dangers like broken sidewalks or teens absorbed in their phones. The sound of a skateboard behind me makes me gasp with fear. I grip my cane and hold my breath until the danger passes. Then I tremble as I continue my wobbly journey.

Once a week now, I lead this poetry group in which about twenty people gather in the facility’s theatre to read poems around a theme. Almost all elders in this club and at this facility have memory loss, for some more advanced than for others.

Each week, as soon as I arrive at the facility, I xerox the next week’s poetry (I now stay a week ahead, in case the machine goes down), and check individually with a resident or two. At noon, I arrange the theatre, moving chairs so that participants can see and hear one another as well as the big screen. Then I go downstairs for a quick lunch.

After lunch, I troll the restaurant, inviting residents to Poetry!. The residents always greet me warmly and often make me laugh. Zelda, who comes to Poetry! every week, eats lunch by herself. When I walk towards her table, she looks up in a friendly way, though I’m not sure whether or not she recognizes me. I introduce my name, as I do with all residents, and she takes my hand, part shaking hands and part holding hands. I tell her that I lead a poetry group at 1:30 (so she has plenty of time to finish her ice-cream), and I would love for her to join us. She has blue eyes that sparkle kindly with a bit of mischief, and she asks, “Do I go to Poetry!?”

I say, “You do.”

She says, “Maybe I don’t like it.”

I say, “You love it. And you love me.”

She laughs, and her eyes sparkle even brighter. “All right then,” she says. “I’ll be there. Where is it?”

I tell her, and she says, “I hope I remember. I’ll try to remember.”

For the first few months, I’m pretty sure she didn’t recognize me or our ritual, but now I think she does. We repeat it each week nonetheless, and we both enjoy the connection. When we read poetry together, I know that her insights into the poems will be so sharp that she will challenge me to re-hear poems I’ve heard for years.

Poetry! isn’t all unicorns and rainbows. There’s a good amount of negotiating where people sit, and people with walkers and wheelchairs seeking places up front that feel supportive to them. People who struggle to hear and see need to sit closer to the front, too, though they’re likely to head to the back. When I ask residents who struggle to hear to move up front, they cup a hand around an ear, cock their head, and say, “What? I can’t hear you.” This is intended to be neither ironic nor humorous.

When a resident with a quiet voice reads, another resident who struggles to hear yells harshly: “Louder!”

One or two people ask, “Why am I here? What is this?”

The ones who remember say, “This is Poetry! Be quiet.”

I love this work and the residents in much the same way that I loved teaching and my high school students. This work again brings me the joy of connection to poetry and people.

After Poetry! ends, Maggie, and Judith stay behind to sit with Pearl* while she waits for care managers to help her from get back into her wheelchair. The residents tell me how much today’s conversation meant to them. They talk about the connections they are building with one another, and Judith looks at me squarely to say, “We’re not going to let you go, you know.”

Thirty minutes later, when Pearl’s care managers arrive to help her into her wheelchair and back to her room, I feel warm with the kindness of this community. We say good-bye, and Maggie rocks, “One-two-three” and rises to her walker. She closes the day with a voice performance of a very long poem from memory, as she often does. Then she turns to me and smiles. I think she is  going to say thank you, but she says, “Who are you?”

“I’m Mary,” I say to her. “I lead Poetry!.” And to myself, I say, “Beyond that, I’m still learning.”

*All residents’ names have been changed.