I Hear You Mom

Hearthside Grove Motor Coach Resort
Petosky, Michigan


We are now at the end of our Michigan jaunt, and have enjoyed every minute of our two-and-a-half-week's vacation of sorts. I say that because if this is a vacation, then I don’t know what we’ve been doing for the past year. Everything has been a vacation.

As usual, we are dogged by mishaps, but that’s only the Universe talking to us and making sure we don’t take this retirement thing for granted. The latest was a missing hearing aid.

My little ear-speakers are extremely light, and I am usually quite unaware of them, until and unless I feel a sort of dead sound in one ear, and then I know I need to replace the battery. I hear sound pretty well, but I just can’t make out words. Teeth could be feet, for instance. And a pain in the toe is a lot different from a toothache, so I need these little buggers. And they are not inexpensive, so when one went missing I was, needless to say, concerned.

I have this big, fluffy, curly hair and apparently when I pushed it off my neck in an effort to cool off in the heat, I dislodged one and sent it flying. I started a search as soon as I realized it was missing, about ten minutes later. I checked the car and came up empty-handed, then the bedroom, then oh god my table with its thousands of little jewelry parts, computer, camera, paperback book and pens, etc. I scoured the mess and came up empty again. John backed the car out so I could search the driveway.

I said a prayer and asked for help in finding the missing aid. Of course I found it right away, on the driveway. John had driven over it. I laughed at the irony and said to God – Ooops, sorry, I forgot to ask that it not be crunched under the car wheel.

I laid it gently on the kitchen counter, adding up the additional bucks necessary to replace it. $2500 for two, so $1250 for one? Or maybe I should replace both with the new supersonic ones my pal Dan, my hearing aid specialist, had recommended on my last visit. They wouldn’t whistle when I picked up the phone. Maybe God was telling me I should upgrade.

I picked up the damaged, crushed hearing aid, slide the battery holder closed and listened. The darn thing was working! God had his joke and let me off the hook!

What was I thinking! That wasn’t God. I should have recognized my mother in that one from the very beginning. First of all, she was psychic, of that I am certain. She could find anything, anywhere. If anyone in the house lost anything, anything at all, she would think on it, then within two guesses, locate it exactly where it lay. Rings, keys, homework, you name it. She found it.

She was also the original make-do woman. Having grown up during the depression, she was a fan of re-use, recycle, before it ever came into vogue. My favorite coat growing up was a maroon wool and velvet charmer with hat and muff to match that she made from fabric she found on sale and lined with my father’s old wool coat. I wore it until my elbows were poking out of the bottom of the sleeves. That wasn’t just recycling, that was love sewn into a garment, hers and my father’s both. How awesome is that.

But back to the hearing aid. Of course my mother lead me straight to the spot it lay on the pavement. And even though it was crushed, it still worked. No one would see it behind my ear, so the decline of its former beauty was of no concern. It worked, for heaven’s sake. That in itself was a second miracle. Not to mention the saving of $1250. My mother was also good on managing the money. And she always enjoyed a good joke, especially if she was the prankster.

Yeah, it was her all right.

Not God. Goddess.

Betty