When I was 9 years old and living in N.E. Washington, DC, in the back of my Weekly Reader was a small ad for hearing aids. The little magazine, that was really an elaborate pamphlet, was geared toward children 6 thru 12. I paid three cents a week to Pierce Elementary School to be part of the in-crowd. I must credit the marketing department of the hearing aid company that placed the ad. They knew somewhere out there was a little boy or girl who had a parent, or in my case a great-grandparent that was, “hard of hearing.”
I clipped the ad, filled out the required information and mailed it to the company address. In 1965 DC schools taught practical skills, like how to fill out and stamp an envelope. The biggest influence in my life was my great-grandmother, Annie Beatrice Yates. She was a short, comfortably round black woman with horned-rimmed glasses and a crown of grey hair; she wore flowered dresses, called ‘shifts’ designed for full-figured women. I most remember the ballooning pockets of her dress, because that’s where she kept the nickels for the ice cream man.
After seven o’clock one evening in late September the doorbell rang at my great-granny’s house. My uncle answered the door and there stood a young white man in a grey suit carrying, what look like to me, a mini suitcase. He introduced himself, shakily gave the name of the hearing aid company and said, “I am here to speak with Mr. Owens.” I was raised by extended family and me and my 6-year-old sister had the only Owens surname in the home. My uncle seemed puzzled by his request. I spoke up and told him and the now full room, consisting of my sister, my uncle, my aunt and my great- granny, “I sent for him, I want my great-granny to hear again.”
Slowly, over many years of working in a laundromat and enduring the noise of the constant whirring of machinery and old age she was effectively deaf. Oh, if you yelled at the top of your lungs she could respond but not always to what you said or asked. My uncle looked in my eyes and realized how much it meant to me to have her hear my voice once again. He turned away from my gaze sighed and told the man, “we can’t afford it.” My eyes welled with tears, like the good salesman he was, the rep offered a free hearing test and after seeing the results he could offer a variety of payment plans.
He opened his case, it was full of gadgets, headphones and wires. He yelled at my great-granny repeatedly to explain what he was going to do. Finally, she had the headphones on and the test began. I was chosen to be a part of the test because I was even more soft spoken than my sister. He had me stand across the room and call out her name, first loudly, then softer, after each time her turned the knobs on his device. On the last adjustment, he looked down at the name on the referral card he carried and said to me, “whisper her first name, Annie.” I demurred, I had never called her by her first name my whole life, that was disrespectful. He assured me it was okay. I looked at my uncle he nodded approval. I whispered, “Annie,” she answered, “please call me Beatrice.”
She could hear me, she could hear me! I relate this story because the recent debate about healthcare being a right or a privilege reminded me of that moment. My granny worked hard, raised three generations of my family and literally worked herself into audio darkness. She had the right to hear. We did not buy the hearing aid; the price was just too prohibitive for the modest life we led. For a moment, I could see the gift of sound and she could hear it. Beatrice died at age 79, when I was twenty-three. I smiled at her funeral because I knew she died with the sound of my voice to carry with her. When do we earn the right to a full healthy life?
‘Vote in 18 and Change’
