What? Say that again!

I just completed a milestone in the aging saga. I got hearing aids.

And I’m surprised. For some reason I didn’t think this would happen to me. In fact, I was proud of the fact that I didn’t need them. But I was beginning to notice how often I was saying, “What?” And not just to Hal, who is soft-spoken anyway. But in any conversation of more than three people. In meetings where people did not want to use a mic. Especially in the dinning room. It was getting embarrassing.

The whole problem crept up on me gradually. I finally had to admit I needed help. And now here I am. One of them.

“What?” is a word we hear a lot around here. It gets funny. In fact there are a lot of deaf-old-people jokes out there in the world.

Two friends:
#1: Maybe you should think about getting a hearing test.
#2: Why would I want a hairy chest?

What do you call an old man who has his hearing aids turned off?
Anything you want.

Sorry. Those are truly moan-worthy.

I guess there’s a lot to laugh about. Except when it happens to you and then it’s not so funny anymore. Hal began to lose his hearing years ago and his attempts to adapt to hearing aids haven’t worked. He has skin allergies that make the aids painful. It’s hard to participate in conversations, other than one-on-one. Lectures, sermons, announcements, even with a mic, are blurred. We only watch movies with subtitles.

It especially bothers him as a musician. Hal plays the French horn in the community band. In practices he can’t hear the conductor’s directions and has to depend on the person sitting next to him. Fortunately, that person is kind and understanding. And of course, as the hearing loss progresses—well, you can guess what that does to a musician.

It’s not only hard on the person. It’s hard on the other people in his or her life. I’m sympathetic and usually kind, but there are times I just get downright irritated. Hal gets tired of asking me to repeat and I get irritated at having to do it. And that’s not fair to him. I end up feeling guilty. If we’re both tired, we often just give in and don’t talk at all. (Fortunately, that never lasts long.)

From conversations with others, I know that we’re not alone in facing these challenges. One in every three adults between the ages of 61 and 70 has hearing loss. Above 85, the number rises to 80% (American Academy of Family Physicians). In addition, studies show a relationship between hearing loss and depression. Deafness or partial deafness are also said to play a role in dementia. Hearing aids help reduce the risks of these conditions.

So, here I am. It’s not been a week yet and I’m still adapting. I’ve still very aware that these things are in my ears. Fortunately the models these days are discrete and so far no one can tell I’m wearing them (except when I can’t keep it back and say, “Guess what?........”). I’m still a bit uneasy. I’m not sure I’m putting them in correctly or if they’re far enough into the ear. Am I cleaning them well enough? My follow-up visit is in two weeks. My list of questions is growing.

I have no doubt that I’m hearing better. Sitting around the table in Sunday school, I could hear the people across from me without cupping my ear and leaning forward. I can hear my soft-spoken husband (even if he can’t hear me).

And I can hear a lot more than that. I never realized what a noisy world we live in. Just in our apartment, everything is loud—the clock on the wall, paper crinkling, the door closing, our loud-mouthed refrigerator that hums the same tune over and over. The sound the toothbrush makes scrapping my teeth.

And me! I can hear myself talking; it’s like being in an echo chamber, and it doesn’t sound like me. Or what I thought I sounded like. A little tinnier. In fact, everything seems tinny, like people are speaking through tin cans connected by wires. I’m told this will moderate in time, that I’ll learn how to adjust the sounds and volume. I hope so.

Overall, I’m pleased. I know I’ll grow used to my hearing aids, begin to forget they’re in there, and just hear people talking, birds singing in the distance, the creek bubbling over rocks, and all that other good stuff. 

I’ll probably still get angry at jokes about old people saying “What?” all the time. Compassion is called for and understanding. 

But you can smile. 

“Age Shame”—the hidden disease

 I was visiting with a good friend last week. She was telling me about a new insight she had on how shame is a part of growing older in our culture. Even in people with a fairly well-balanced sense of self (we both consider ourselves in that category, true or not), shame about aging seems to express itself in all kinds of circumstances.

Recently my friend was driving a family member to an appointment and she found herself asking, “Are you uneasy with someone my age driving?” She happens to be a good, confident driver. No need to ask that question; it just appeared from somewhere, as though there was something inherently dangerous about “someone my age” driving.

I’ve never thought of myself as struggling with feelings of shame, but as we continued our conversation, I began to recognize a problem. We thought of different “reasons” an older person might feel shame. Hearing loss is one fact of aging that produces shame. It gets embarrassing to keep asking, “What?” This is the source of a lot of old-people jokes. Hal has faced this for several years now, and finally, it’s my turn. I’m realizing I’m asking the what-question more frequently. Sometimes I find myself smiling agreeably at what someone has said, just because I don’t want to have to say What? again. So I went to audiologist and testing showed I need hearing-aids. Which introduces a new potential source of shame—those unsightly mechanical devices sticking out your ear that announce to the world, “I’m old.”

Another potential source of shame: realizing that we need a cane, walker, or wheel chair. I have a problem with vestibular migraines which, while not producing pain, make me dizzy. So I’ve taken to using a walking stick which helps my sense of balance, but I feel apologetic (totally illogical!) and find myself hoping no one mistakes it for a cane. Silly, but real.

Any more when I’m in a large family gathering, I find the younger people frequently asking me, “Are you doing Ok, Mom (or Grandma)? Can I get you anything?” In planning a hike (something the family does a lot of), people now often ask, “But can Nancy do it? Should we do something else?” They’re actually being thoughtful, but it all makes me feel older and frailer than I am. (I am not frail at all!) The fact is, hiking really does make the dizziness worse, and I hate that. It turns me into a problem for other people. I’m identifying my feelings as shame.

We listed other potential sources of shame: needing frequent naps; not “getting stuff done;” forgetting appointments, names, and what day it is, etc.; not being able to do things we used to excel at; more frequent trips to the doctor; a changing body that doesn’t conform to our culture’s vision of human beauty. And the list goes on. You could undoubtedly add to it.

 Psychologist Harriet Lerner, writing in Psychology Today (2014), points to the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about age. “Women have long been shamed for growing older…. Women have actually been taught to conceal their age, to joke and even lie about it, to treat it as a shameful little secret.” Lerner also notes that, “Considering the horribly shaming messages that people receive around issues of race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, the matter of age may seem like a trivial one. But it’s not. Colluding with the notion that older is lesser disempowers women [and men], convincing us that we are less valuable with each passing birthday.”

To a large extent, age-shame is a culture phenomenon. Our western, middle-class culture emphasizes youth, even in aging people who are encouraged to take drugs or buy products that make us feel or look younger. Other cultures, especially in the majority world, honor the aged among them. This is certainly true of the Aymara culture of Bolivia where I lived for so many years. While the old men and women among these people suffer the usual problems of aging, they don’t feel shame, nor do their family members shame them or joke about aging. They honor the elderly and seek out their wisdom.

Shame is different than guilt. Guilt refers to negative feelings when we know we’ve done something wrong. Guilt usually points to truth and calls for confession or restitution. Shame, on the other hand, most often refers to negative feelings about who we are. It can be totally illogical. Such is shame in being old. Everyone’s is headed in this direction. It’s a reality of life and there’s not much we can do about it.

Lehner says, “To invite joy and happiness in, we can break the vicious circle of shame, silence, stigma, and secrecy that surround who we truly are. And that includes how old we are.”

I have some older friends who celebrate their age, live actively, and engage in the world around them, who have no need to hide how old they are. They serve as models to me. I’m that way—some of the time. Other times I feel shame for all sorts of things. I’ve not been conscious of this, but I hope that now, by recognizing and naming it, I’m taking a step forward in dealing with it in a healthy manner.

I’m praying the words of Psalms 40 and 41 concerning the condition of shame:

O Lord, have mercy on me and heal me.
Set my feet upon a rock.
Put a new song in my heart.
O Lord, have mercy on me.

How good to unapologetically accept who we are and just get on with life.

The delights of decay

The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben’s marvelous book, provided part of the inspiration for the metaphor of aging as an old growth forest. Last Christmas Hal and I bought ourselves a gift of the coffee-table version of the book, complete with dozens of beautiful photographs. The text is an abridged version of the original.

The third chapter of the coffee-table book is entitled “The Delights of Decay” and describes how trees age. The chapter begins by pointing out similarities between old trees and old humans. Take bark and skin, for example. Both trees and humans shed. As they age, the cracks, folds, and wrinkles in a tree’s bark change, “steadily deepening as the years progress.” The analogy is obvious.

Another sign of aging in a tree occurs in its crown. It just doesn’t grow new shoots like it used to. In conifers, “the ramrod-straight trunks end in topmost shoots or leaders that are gradually reduced to nothing.” In many aging men, the “topmost shoots” also become scarce.

Let me quote the next comparison: “Every tree gradually stops growing taller. Its roots and vascular system cannot pump water and nutrients any higher because this exertion would be too much for the tree. Instead, the tree just gets wider.” No comment.

Wohlleben goes on to show how trees age gracefully, providing housing for all kinds of beasts, as well as the foundations for new life in baby trees. Part of the delight of an old growth forest is the integration of all the stages in the lives of the trees, including their decay.

Speaking of the delights of decay, at this point the metaphor breaks down. The inevitable disintegration of body parts and functions in aging humans is not delightful. Maybe some people come to a point of peaceful resignation, but they encounter discouragement and agony along the way. (And some never become resigned.)

Take the sense of hearing, a common problem of elder-decay. In fact, this has become a stereotype of aging and a source of jokes. The conversation of older couples is depicted as being punctuated by “What?” “Could you repeat that?” “Wad-ja-say?” and on and on. Very funny.

Until it happens to you. 

This is happening to Hal and it’s been a source of agony as so much of a conversation slips past him. He’s not good at pretending to laugh at a joke when he missed hearing the last part. So he ends up looking grumpy, when that’s not the case at all. We now need to find a table in the quieter section of the dining hall if we’re feeling sociable (which we frequently are). He’s a musician, which makes it worse. In rehearsals, he has to ask the horn player next to him what the conductor just said. It would help if the skin of his ears wasn’t so irritated by the plastic in his hearing aids.

And it’s not something that happens just to the person. It affects the couple. Or the friendship. If I were a more perfect person, consistently patient and kind, life would be easier for both of us. But some days I just get irritated at having to hear “What?” so often. Or at realizing he’s smiling in agreement even when he hasn’t heard me, just because it’s easier that way. I guess this is my True Confession. I guess I need to see this as another opportunity to grow in grace and patience. Maybe someday I’ll be that perfect wife.

And then there’s the observation that I, myself, am starting to repeat, “Could you say that again?” What could that possibly mean?

I’m laughing as I write this. But it’s not really that funny, and I wish it were not happening. But it is.

St. Paul tells us to be encouraged, that decay is not the last word: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

Might we also decide to fix our ears on what is unheard rather than on what is heard (and what we can’t hear anyway)?

We may not be trees, but there is still delight in this old forest. Delight that lasts a long time.