The 10pm Voice

Thud, thud, thud, thud! At least that’s what I think the sound I’m making with my fingers actually sounds like. I don’t know for sure. The hearing aid is more of an accessory to me. I like how people think it’s an in-ear like the one that musicians use during a rendition, or an earphone that I’m struggling to fit in my ear.

Sometimes it’s funny and other times I wish they’d leave me alone.

Mom’s sitting beside me and moving her leg frantically. I guess she’s nervous or scared. I don’t really feel fear since I lost my hearing. It’s like that fire made me a new person. Mom worries when I stay in the bathroom longer than she thinks I should and I don’t want to make her feel bad for caring too much, but she cares too much. Maybe it’s a mom thing.

I wouldn’t know anything about that.

I’m a seventeen-year-old boy who can’t hear and I don’t miss hearing many things, like girls screaming and laughing like hyenas or boys fighting for no reason and cars making unnecessary noise in crazy traffic. I do miss hearing mom telling me that she loves me, but reading her lips as she says it is the most beautiful part of any day. She doesn’t want to believe it but she’s the best mother to me and Benji.

Oh! I’m Jason. Jason Ressle.

And Benji’s my little brother. Our firecracker. I don’t think he’s ever been still for longer than thirty seconds in all of his ten years of life. Never.

A minute is too long.

The boy just has energy for all three of us stacked up in him. I don’t know why God chose to burden him with all that exuberance but it is what it is. We love him. I know my life would lack greatly without him. Love that kid.

I’m glad he’s not here with us. At the hospital. He’d be running all over the place or worse…stopping patients in wheelchairs to ask them what’s wrong with them. He’s probably napping right now, at home with the nanny mom hires when I have my appointments.

Today is my cancer checking appointment. I haven’t been responding to the treatment and hearing aid stuff as well as I ‘typically’ should be. I’m supposed to be sad about that but I know something. No. I know someone who told me everything will be okay. So, I’m not sad. I’m just here so mom gets the same news I already got and we can go home and forget about all this.

I hope she cooks her famous pie when we get back home today. Usually, after a hard day she works it out in the kitchen and Benji and I stay away until she starts setting the table. The sound of the plates hitting the glass table summons us every time.

I was about to sleep, just three nights ago when my eye caught a light. I didn’t know where it was coming from and couldn’t understand how my room was suddenly so bright when I’d just turned off my side lamp and shut my bedroom door. It was almost blinding and I sat up slowly, on my bed.

Then I attempted to say something, for reasons I can’t explain even today but words wouldn’t sound out of my mouth. So, I just sat there…waiting. Frozen.

Then suddenly a warmth caught me off guard, surrounding me, and that’s when I heard the voice. The words were clearer than a perfectly produced musical ensemble…

IT IS WELL WITH YOU. DON’T WORRY ABOUT ANYTHING. I AM WITH YOU.

A part of me wanted to deny the words yet I knew I heard them clearly. I wanted so much to scream about my loss of hearing. Why did I have to lose my hearing just because I chose to help a friend out of a fatal fire. I just wanted to help my friend, so why did I have to lose something so meaningful to me. I didn’t deserve it, did I?

While I was thinking these thoughts, the light went away but the warmth remained on me. Since then, I’ve spoken funny things out loud like ‘I forgive the person who caused the fire’ and ‘I’m grateful that my friend survived even though I lost my hearing’.

Josh hasn’t stopped apologizing for the whole thing in sign language. Each time he does it I want to hug him and punch him all at once. I don’t want him to feel guilty for it all and I’m frustrated because I don’t know how to explain to him that I’m not worried about my hearing anymore. I don’t blame him nor hate him for what happened.

I just want to tell him and everyone about what I saw that night in my room, but I don’t know if they’ll understand me.

About two hours after I was called to the theatre at the hospital, I’m out with the biggest smile on my face. It’s not because I wasn’t expecting the good news when I received it, but it was the confirmation that came from hearing what I was quietly expecting to hear. I think that’s what faith is.

Faith in the voice that spoke to me. Faith in its conviction.

Mom is talking to the doctor just a few feet away from me, in the colorful waiting room area, and I take advantage of the lack of attention on me. I step towards the glass window and stare at the beautiful, almost aerial view of the roads with cars moving along them. We’re on the seventh floor of the hospital building and the view is spectacular.

I want Jesus. I’m deaf but I can hear Him. I want to hear Him again. I don’t know how to call Him back to speak to me like He did. Does He know I want to hear from Him again?

I smell my mom’s perfume as I watch a school bus moving along one of the six or seven roads in my view. She may have put on a bit too much today. It’s so strong. Nervousness. She worries too much. That thought pushes me to pray for my mother.

I open my mouth and start talking to the voice I heard in my room. I tell the voice that I want mom to be free from worrying about me and finally realize that I’ll be okay.

That warmth is back again, all over me and my eyes are closed. It’s not the voice. It’s mom. I’m not looking at her face but I can feel her excitement as she squeezes me from behind. I blink a few times and bow my head.

She’s heard the voice too. The good news.