Gerrit Hansen
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Hearing and Listening

11/21/2015

 
Last winter at a family gathering at my parents’ house, my nephew Matt ran outside barefoot in freezing temperatures to get the shoes he had left in the car. My father, who was halfway between the front door and Matt’s car, interrupted his sprint.

Dad: “Matt, you go put some shoes on those feet right now. It’s freezing out here!”
Matt: “That’s what I’m doing, Papa. I’m going out to the car to get my shoes.”
Dad: “I don’t care what you’re doing, Matt. Go get some shoes on your feet now!”
Matt: Exasperation as he runs off to the car.

This story has kept the whole family chuckling at the dinner table many times.

When I was about thirty, I began noticing that I favored my left ear over my right ear when talking on the phone. The hearing loss progressed rapidly, and soon, I was having trouble hearing higher frequencies (read: women’s voices, i.e. my wife’s, and the voices of my children—how convenient!). Fortunately, my condition was operable, and in my mid-forties, my hearing was restored to 90%—I can hear almost everything again—a wonderful, priceless gift. But I had experienced hearing loss long enough to remember the incredible frustration of missing out on so much.

Here are some of the setbacks faced by those who have hearing loss: 
  1. We can’t filter out background noise. The washing machine, running water, etc. always “drowns out” what someone is saying (pun intended).
  2. We miss the words spoken in intonation dips, which can radically alter our understanding and thereby confuse us. Our brains therefore work overtime to figure out what was said, which makes verbal communication mentally and emotionally exhausting.
  3. We have to ask for others to repeat what they’ve said, and most often, they don’t change their volume, speed, or diction, so we’re still clueless the second time around—or third. 
  4. If we say “What?” more than once or twice, people can get offended because they think we’re not paying attention to them. Conversations can get testy.
  5. Hearing loss in one ear means the loss of ability to zero in on the source of a sound. When someone speaks to us, we may hear the speaker, but don’t know where to turn. So we’re turning in circles, trying to identify who spoke…i.e. we look stupid, inept, feeble.

If someone is blind, mute, disabled—any other infirmity—others will be compassionate and helpful. Everyone has walked through a dark room and can imagine blindness. Everyone can look at someone with a physical handicap and imagine what life would be like without use of a limb. But with hearing loss, others can’t “see” it. One’s hearing never gets shut off—people with normal hearing haven’t ever experienced sound deprivation. So, they get irritated with us, or else they don’t believe us when we don’t “remember” what they said. Hearing loss is a no-win disability. 

How do we handle it? We smile a lot, nod our heads confidently, laugh at jokes we couldn’t catch, or our minds wander to other places simply because we can’t follow what’s being said. And we stumble through those embarrassing moments when a question puts our lack of understanding to the test.

Here’s the reality: Hearing loss tasks our brains so much that we often stop listening. You may think, “So THAT’S what’s been happening with my spouse / child / friend / co-worker / employee / boss!” No, you can’t blame everything on hearing loss. But we all have moments when we don’t listen.

Yesterday, the power was out at my son’s school, and he was overjoyed to learn that he had a spontaneous holiday. As a good father, I took it upon myself to dampen some of that celebration by thinking of a couple of chores around the house. So I sent him off in our Ford Ranger to get replacement bulbs for the left headlight. A few months back, my wife had gone to a store in our town—next to Starbucks on the main drag—and had the headlight bulbs replaced in our Honda Odyssey. 

Me: “Son, the store is called Lamps Plus, and it’s right next to Starbucks, across the street from the Olive Garden restaurant.”

Ten minutes later, my son calls me. 

Son: “Dad, they don’t have headlight replacement bulbs here.”
Me: “Sure they do.”
Son: “No, they don’t.”
Me: “How do you know?”
Son: “Daaaaaad, I looked it up on the store’s computer,” (spoken in a “Please be reasonable” tone).
Me: “Have you asked anyone in the store?”
Son: “No.”
Me: “Just ask,” I instructed with as little irritation in my voice as I could manage.
Son: “Okay,” he answers with a dread-filled sigh.

A couple minutes later, he called again and informed me that they didn’t have the bulbs. Then it was my turn to sigh. I told him to forget about it and come home. In the meantime, I texted (SMSed) my wife, asking her the name of the store where she had bought the bulbs. An hour later, she texted back, “Batteries Plus Bulbs.”

That’s when realization struck. “Lamps Plus” is a retail store for furniture, lamps, and accessories that’s located across the street (a couple blocks down) from “Batteries Plus Bulbs.” I had put my son through a ridiculous exchange with a salesman at “Lamps Plus.” The people in the store must have been chuckling after he left. 

Sales Rep #1: “Um, do you sell car headlight bulbs here?” he says in an idiotic voice to parody the conversation.
Sales Rep #2: “Uh, no, but we sell chicken feet and bubble gum,” his colleague answers in the same stupid tone, grinning. And the laughter goes on. 

It sure did when our family gathered at the dinner table later that evening. My wife couldn’t stop laughing. I think I goofed even bigger than my Dad did with Matt last year. In fact, I’m laughing so hard at myself as I’m writing this that I’m wiping away the tears.

“Batteries Plus Bulbs” is right next to Starbucks, across the street from Olive Garden. “Lamps Plus” isn’t too far from the Olive Garden restaurant, across the street from Starbucks. How was I to know my son was calling from a furniture store? How was he to know I had misspoken and had meant “Batteries Plus Bulbs?” The only constant was the “Plus.”

I realize that miscommunications are unavoidable, but through this hilarious exchange, I’ve resolved to not only hear, but to listen and ask better questions. I sure don’t want others to pay the price for my blunders…if I can help it.

A Rascal Named Biscuit

11/13/2015

 
Picture
In 2005, we acquired an eight-week-old Golden Retriever puppy whose name on the pedigree was Celine Von Zilbra (can you believe someone actually came up with that mouthful of a name?), but whom we named Biscuit. We had just rented a new home in Bandung, Indonesia, and were delighted with the adorable showpiece.

A happy dog, Biscuit loved chewing on dirty socks, stinky shoes, rattan furniture, and especially white napkins—whether used or not (in Indonesia, we called napkins “tissue” because there, the word “napkin” had a very different meaning). If someone dropped a napkin while eating at the table, it would be in Biscuit’s tummy before it could reach the ground. And more than once, my rambunctious middle child “accidentally” dropped his napkin, followed by squeals of delight by all three kids as they watched the dog swallow it wholesale. She was (and still is) an omnivore--a goat--ready to eat vegetables, fruit, plastic tabs and caps, aluminum foil, and to no one's surprise, dog food. To this day,  when we're cooking or eating, she magically levitates from her soft, fluffy sleeping pad and is right near us, underfoot, alert and willing to take handouts (which she rarely gets from me). 

Biscuit also enjoyed a Pizza Hut super supreme pizza and a chocolate cake in her early years. I’ve heard chocolate is deadly to dogs, but Biscuit didn’t seem to suffer any harm from it other than a scolding. In fact, Biscuit earned more than a few scoldings and deserved every one of them. She was such a rascal. We dealt with the frustration by giving her silly, ridiculous nicknames like “Stinker,” or “Sneak,” and then laughed. She knew how to sneak around, open doors—sliding doors, latched doors—we had to really think to stay ahead of her.

She was so smart. And it was humiliating to come up with a solution to her naughtiness only to find out she could outsmart our solutions. Besides opening doors and getting around barriers, she learned the following commands: come, speak, sit, dance, down, stay, run, kennel (go to the kennel), pee-pee (she went on command, which was incredibly convenient when traveling), and probably a few others I can’t think of at the moment. 

One of Biscuit’s favorite things to do was bolt from the garage door and out the front gate if she sensed the opportunity to escape the yard. When that happened, I’d hear shouting, and then someone came running to wherever I was in the house and tell me that Biscuit had escaped. None of Biscuit’s well-rehearsed commands worked when she was outside the gate…“come” was a foreign language to her. She always waited at the end of the street, and once she saw me emerge from the gate, she’d smile, turn the corner, and run down the next street, begging me to chase her. She waited at the next corner until I appeared, shouting her name and “come” repeatedly, and then took off again. I think she enjoyed watching her "dad" run down the narrow back streets and alleys of northern Bandung wearing nothing more than a pair of shorts, a t-shirt, and flip-flops as Indonesians stared at the crazed white giant flying by them. I'm sure I looked...and sounded...shall we say...undignified, to say the least? Biscuit often made me run for 2 miles before I cornered her.

The first time it happened, I was so spitting mad at her I could hardly stand it. But carrying the cute, cuddly friend in my arms all the way home, I couldn't stay angry at her that first time. By the time I got home, I was chuckling about the whole affair. However, when the event turned into a weekly occurrence that went on for months, my attitude changed. I started boxing her in a small area once home, and wouldn't let her leave that space until the next day (except for when she needed to do her "business"). Even then, I'd come in and feed her, pet her, and have a calm, heart-to-heart talk (after I cooled down). One thing is clear: She never once escaped when I went to the gate. Biscuit wasn’t the only one who got a scolding. 

Biscuit continued in her rascally ways until she met a stud named Fay Holden—a grand champion Golden Retriever owned by the chairman of Indonesia’s national Golden Retriever Breeder’s Club. Our dog calmed after those two brief encounters, and even lost her appetite (a miraculous turn of events!) as her abdomen swelled. 

Finally the day arrived when Biscuit went into the whelping pen and lay down. In just a few hours, we went from one dog to 12 dogs—11 puppies! 

She was an excellent mother, cleaning and feeding her pups like an experienced mother. She ate a ton after giving birth, so she always had plenty of milk. We had to help with the feeding to make sure the small ones had a turn at one of the ten nipples, because the puppies were always nudging one another onto the next milk station. Fortunately, all of the puppies thrived. We couldn’t keep ourselves from holding them, and Biscuit was patient with us through all the excessive handling of her babies.

Early one morning three weeks later, I went downstairs and found that the pups had broken the barrier of the whelping pen and had messed—both #1 and #2—all over the kitchen/dining area. The floor was white ceramic tiles, so the cleanup wasn’t that difficult—just unpleasant. We raised the height of the pen’s barrier, but they were Biscuit's children. Three days later, when all eleven had escaped the higher wall, we knew it was time to move them outside into the back yard—a safe area walled and impossible to escape from...unless one of the kids "accidentally" let them in through the back door.

Every morning, I’d go out to the back porch, clap my hands and shout “puppies,” and eleven Golden Retriever balls of fur came bounding toward me, jumping up on my bare legs (I had learned to wear shorts and sandals). In doggie-gesture, they said, “pick me up, pick me up!” Of course, I did, and tried to give every one of them a turn. They were often muddy and wet, and loved to lick my face and arms, so I always had to take a shower after that morning and evening feeding. But when the dog food clinking against the stainless food bowl sounded, I became a persona non importo (that's made-up Latin). 

After caring for these puppies, Biscuit’s rascally days mostly came to an end. She stopped trying to escape from the yard, she didn’t jump on counters to snatch pizzas and chocolate cakes, and she began following the commands both inside as well as outside of the home. But she still inches into the no-go zones of our house, even though she knows better. All I have to do is say, "Biscuit" sharply, and she retreats, her eyes guiltier than a convicted criminal.

Now a little over ten years, she sleeps a lot. We kept one of her puppies, now a 7.5 year-old female named Arwen. We brought back to the States and now lives with my brother's family. But whenever the two animals get together, Biscuit and Arwen become puppies again, wrestling with each other like when Arwen was still Biscuit’s two-month-old baby.


We recognize that Biscuit won’t be with us forever, but what a loss we’ll feel when her days come to and end. I won’t miss cleaning up the dog hair or reminding her of the “no-go” zones (we have to limit the reach of her constantly-shedding coat of hair). But we’ll miss her charming, wanting-to-please personality. Anyone who meets Biscuit can’t help but like her—she’s an incredibly affectionate dog. Again and again, friends and guests say, “Biscuit is my favorite dog away from home.”

    Photo (above) by 
    Gerrit Hansen: Karimunjawa Islands, Indonesia

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