Ginny Mazur says goodbye to the hearing world. When I first started to lose my hearing I got hearing aids. One of the biggest surprises that I had was that the directional signal on my car made a sound. Imagine a symphony orchestra, it's like you can't hear either highs or lows, the violins or the basses. Sounds become muddled and override one another. It's not quiet. It's often clangy and clashing and confusing, kind of like the lid of a trash can as it bangs together. Initially, you really feel like your world is shrinking and shifting. What was once utterly familiar and commonplace, that's no longer accessible. I've already said goodbye to a lot of birds. I miss them. I miss the sound of the leaves rushing in the trees. I don't hear that. Kids I've lost much of an ability to hear. I don't know if I'm going to completely lose the human voice. That would be the hardest thing to lose. I still have some recordings of my husband's voice which I listen to and though there's just elements of his voice that I can perceive, there is incredible familiarity. A lovable, lovable, sweet teacher and musician. A person most dear to me. Bob died over three years ago. Since he died, I feel like I wish I had a reprieve from Mother Nature around loss. You know, alright already. And that's not the way it's going. I think I'm saying goodbye to the hearing world altogether. I have to ask people for help and I've become more human on account of that, to seeing that other people need help. I've a sense now that things don't last in life, so it's important to love and to care about what's important right now. There's a lot more to pay attention to. I can see the twinkle in your eye a lot more than I would have been paying attention because I'd just be listening to your voice. My Mom used to have a little poster on the wall of her kitchen that said, "Bless This Mess." We kids thought this was the queerest thing. Now, when I think back and now, looking at my life, I think I have a little bit more of a clue of what she was trying to get at. We are human. I don't want it to be perfect. 'Cause then I'm afraid I'll forget that pain that comes out of love. Honey, you are loved. Carry that with you wherever you go . . . Thanks to Magnatune recording artist Vito Paternoster for the use of "Suite VI in Re magiore - prelude" in the production of this week's podcast. This is sampled under an Attribution 2.5 Creative Commons license. http://www.magnatune.com/artists/paternoster http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/ Morning Stories on Flickr, http://flickr.com/photos/wgbhmorningstories Support Morning Stories at our website, http://wgbh.org/morningstories Less