Mom
she's like me but better
My mother is hearing impaired and can only hear because of the glorious technology that is cochlear implants. The doctors have no idea how or why she lost her hearing, but a little after I was born, she just did. On my report cards, as a child, my teachers would make comments like, “Alexia is doing well but she needs to learn how to lower her voice.” My parents would read and laugh. How were my teachers to know that my early developmental years were filled with my dad and I yelling as loud as we could in hopes that my mother would hear us.
She had to completely relearn how to hear sound. A crazy statement, I know. But after she got her cochlear she took a year to be able to hear sounds the same way again. Birds sounded like drilling, every person’s voice sounded like Darth Vader. She was a woman, not only dealing with the extreme life altering experience that is being a new mother, but also dealing with an entirely new and different challenge, not being able to hear. And even as she began to approach her new disability she never once complained. Through my entire childhood her positivity has not fallen. But that’s what parents are supposed to do right?
It takes a person a long time to realize that their parents are also real people. And to what magnitude? I still can’t comprehend to what extent my parents' emotions are felt. They’ve done a good job of convincing me that they hold some superhero strength only grownups can conceive. My mom; Even through all that thick skin and positivity, something still manages to break the barrier. Something that, when I think hard about it, makes my heart get that tense, fuzzy, not-good feeling.
My mom will never hear me sing. She’ll never know what my voice sounds like. I had never thought about that until about a year ago and it hit me like a rock. I’m aware there are bigger tragedies, povertu, war etc… but I know my mom would give anything to hear me sing. Just once. I’ve been singing and making music since I was a child. I would perform in musicals and vocal recitals and concerts. I would beg people to let me on stage and sing at concerts, festivals, weddings. My one form of expression, the biggest part of my life, my mom will never experience. The other night I finished a performance and my mother's friend told her how much she enjoyed my voice and how sad she was that my mother cannot hear me the way she hears me. My mom told me this in the car and I looked over and noticed her eyes well up slightly. My mom is a stubborn woman who rarely expresses sadness. I know how much it hurts my mother that she can’t hear my voice. It’s like a side of me that she will never know, to her, it’s a barrier she’ll never breach. Why couldn’t I have picked anything else? I couldn’t have been a painter or a dancer like she was, anything she could enjoy. But I didn’t and this is who I am now.
It’s not something I think I should dwell on and she doesn’t either but I can’t help but feel a slight twinge of sadness when I’m showing my parents a new song I’ve written or singing in a concert, open mic or musical. It’s the one gift I can never give her. But despite it all and although she can’t hear it, she always shows up, she's always there. She always has her iPhone 6s with the bamboo phone case from Hawaii in the air until her phone storage is full. She's the first person to tell me how amazing everyone says I sound. Although she can’t hear me, my singing still brings her the most joy out of anyone I have sung for. Even though she can’t hear me, she’s the proudest of me out of anyone in my life. I love my mom.
Thanks for reading :)
Here is a link to my blog and soundcloud! https://alexiaboyagiann.wixsite.com/alexiablogs/blog