While the unfinished Requiem Mass by Mozart in D Major plays in the background, the telephone rings. My partner, Marco, picks up the phone. “Can I speak to Mr. Walker?” It was a forced jovial voice.
“I am afraid John can’t come to the phone, although he is here. He is deaf. Would you like me to pass on a message for you, or I could relay the conversation between you and him?”
“Oh, I am so sorry for you news,” came the sympathetic tones.
“I said, deaf not dead. John can’t hear.”
“I am so very sorry.”
There must be a few companies out there who think I have passed away. Will I be waiting for someone to come round with a bunch of flowers or a card of sympathy? Or be stopped at the immigration desk asking if I am the real John Walker.
Yes, deaf and death are homophones to a lazy speaker who would pronounce ‘th’ with a ‘f.’ But this phonological analysis only scratches the surface, there is a cultural reality of how ‘deaf’ is perceived.
My Grandmother was at her deathbed. She lay in coma after a heart attack and two successive strokes; the doctor prepared us to expect her life to come to an end. She was 78 years old and lived a good life. She was the oldest of 7 siblings and was the family matriarch.
I was told by the doctor, as I sat beside her, that I should speak to her. Puzzled, I asked why. It is thought that hearing is the last sense to go, she might be able to hear our conversations and words of reassurance. When my parents left the room to get a cup of coffee, I stayed behind and spoke of the memories we had and the things we did as a family, only to clammer up when they returned; I felt embarrassed. You must remember that I was only 19 years old at the time and it was bizarre to talk to someone who couldn’t respond.
The idea of sound and hearing being the final frontier of human existence places a lot of emphasis on the relationship between hearingness, or the lack of it, and the impending death. The statistics are quite strong, 2/3 of over 75 year olds have a hearing loss. A large proportion of the 4 million deaf and hard of hearing people in the country are elderly. There are several conditions that give rise to hearing loss, such as osteoporosis; the weakening of the bones such as those in the middle ear that lose efficiency to transmit sounds to cochlear.
It does make me wonder why people refer to deafness as a ‘serious condition’. The loss of hearing, in mid life, coincides with the loss of family, work, social networks and relationships. This ongoing chain of consequences, when one’s life breaks down, leads to a sensation of a downward spiral closer to the ‘final conclusion’. It must be terrifying and haunting to have a hearing loss as the doorway to one’s mortality.
A friend who worked at M&S noticed a difference in the customers’ reactions. When she didn’t understand a customer, she says “Hi, I’m deaf, can you say that again?” The customer just ups and walks. Her strategy was to change what she says, “Hi, I can’t hear very well, can you say that again?” And the customer stays. Deaf doesn’t only mean dead but also dead end. There is a deep reference in society about how one reacts to the word. If the common reference to deaf-life is over the age of 65, is it not surprising?
Even some parents of newly born deaf children associate deafness with mortality. When the parents receive news from their child’s neonatal hearing test, they react with shock when they realise the child they had is not the child they have now. In a sense, the previous child ‘died’ and there is a different child in front of them. It takes time to get their head around the idea that they have a beautiful child with a promising future.
There is something important about bringing a child to life, there is a process of preparing that child for adulthood in order to set them free into society. Free to influence the world as they see fit. This is what happens to those children who seek opportunities, including opportunities in the Deaf community. They realise their social capital as bilingual/bicultural individuals who can function in both the Deaf and hearing worlds.
My previous thoughts about the insider and outsider dichotomy shows here too. Society considers deafness as a loss of capital, a loss of worth, whereas Deaf people see deafness as a capital gain, an increase of worthiness. This is where the conflict reigns. I, for one, am not prepared to live my life with my own mortality as a constant reference point, I am here to live just as I am.
I go to the radio playing the Requiem and give Marco a sharp look, I switch it off. “Another few more years before we get to this stage.”
