As I watched my father adjust to his hearing aids, I focused on his embarrassment, the inconvenience, and the cost.  Yesterday, I took a two-hour walk in Seashore State Park and wondered why I did not also focus on the deprivation — he was slowly being deprived of life’s little pleasures.  There are more bird sounds than I can catalog.  Tiny waves make very little sound, but it is such a soothing sound.  Gentle breezes not only feel good, they sound slightly haunting or even alive.  A pine cone dropping into the swamp water sounds more like a blast than a drip.

Not hearing such sounds is a form of deprivation.  Hearing aids are not sensitive enough to capture most of the sounds I savored yesterday, but I’m grateful for what they can do.  That’s a good thing, because my wife swears there is one in my future . . . someday.