January 06, 2005 - 9:42 a.m. Last night, I had a sort of thought, like a dream, only I wasn't quite asleep. In this episode, I was lying in my bed when suddenly I realized that I could not hear. I screamed--or tried--and ran into my parents' room, trying to tell my mother that I could hear nothing and that I was scared. Of course, I could not hear my own words and was self-conscious at how they might sound. I flashed forward to moments I would miss hearing, to phonecalls that I would no longer be able to answer, to how I would miss Spencer's voice in particular. I pictured myself telling Cary that we could no longer talk over Skype because I couldn't hear it. I saw myself banging on the piano in anger that the discord did not hurt my ears. I then played a C scale, knowing what it should sound like, but being utterly unable to experience it. My heart sunk at the fact that I would never again hear music played, that I would never hear my babies cry. I saw myself driving to the bookstore to buy a sign language dictionary, my characteristically rational attempt to belong to the world of the deaf, to belong to the silence. I wondered if I should be driving at all given that I would be unable to hear honking horns or emergency sirens. I felt myself struggle internally whether to turn off the radio--I always drive with the radio, but in my new deaf world, it was futile. Even if it is futile, should I stop? At this point, I realized that I could still hear, that it was only a funny sort of dream. I called to God that He would please never take my hearing, that I would never have to experience th fear, the frustration, the rage inside that silent world of my thoughts that I had just tasted. Yet, I get the funny feeling that I am already deaf, that it was all a metaphor for a greater sort of spiritual deafness. What does this mean? And how can I start hearing again? ...before & after...