Through Her Ears

My earliest memory is my mother’s face. Up close, too close if it was anyone but my mother. I remember counting her eyelashes, her eyebrows – thin and angular like mine… our noses touching, breathing the same air. Her brown eyes. She’ll tell you they’re hazel to seem more interesting, but trust me, they’re brown. I’ve spent 30 years studying those eyes. Almond shaped, twinkling with a hint of sadness that only a mother’s eyes can hold.

In her queen-size, four poster bed, I wasn’t supposed to be there… I was supposed to be in my own room down the hall. But Mom never said no when I came crawling in. She just lifted the covers and molded her body to mine. I think she secretly wanted to sleep with me just as much as I wanted to sleep with her. I remember drifting off to sleep to her voice singing “The Song of the Animal Fair”…

Now I sleep with my own daughter, in her bed down the hall. Her earliest memory will be my own brown, almond eyes. Except she can’t hear my voice singing “The Song of the Animal Fair.” But I still sing…

I’ll always sing, just like my mother, only my daughter can’t hear me. My voice carries that slight hint of sadness only mothers can detect, but my daughter will never know. My daughter is deaf, and I’m still trying to figure out what exactly that truly means.

Let’s figure it out together.