By Rex Catubig

 

(in observance of the National Elderly Filipino Week: Embracing Age–Living a life with Dignity and Purpose)

It is said that the last sense to go as one approaches the final round is the sense of hearing. While the body may have given up the fight, it is claimed that one could whisper into the ear of a dying man and he could clearly hear it. And it could be the last words that he would ever hear—words of comfort and assurance, and letting go.

But contrary to that belief, it is also true that the sense of hearing actually declines faster and much earlier than eyesight as we go through the rigors of aging.  In fact, one dead giveaway of getting old is becoming hard of hearing.

Along the route to garbled or indistinct sound, conversations get peppered with interjections that have nothing to do with being polite. “Excuse me?” Or “I beg your pardon?” should not be construed as common etiquette. And an inordinate and repetitive need for clarification, like, “Ano kamo?” “Ansabi mo?” is more an urgent note to speak louder than a desire for clarity of thought.

As a standard gesture, so as not to impose one’s nascent hearing impairment, one needs to make a habit of cocking one’s ear.

At the beginning of 2000, one of the most memorable advertising taglines that resonated across the cell phone signal, is the confirmatory question: “Can you hear me now?”

It echoes the problem with weak signals that make communication choppy and corrupted—not just in technology but in human interaction.

As this challenge with auditory reception progresses, it short-circuits even the simplest perception among my age bracket–where conversations get cluttered with crisscrossing thought balloons.

To show an actual scenario that depicts being at cross purposes, during a luncheon meet-up with some friends, malapropisms popped like kettle popcorn after a burpy meal concluded with sweets and the usual culinary culprits.

It could be argued that carbs, cholesterol, and sugar– any one of which or a combination thereof– could have been the trigger. At a certain age, food is not so much nourishment as a time bomb. After the initial heavenly euphoria of satiation (“Ang sarap!”), one breaks into a medical emergency interlude of acid reflux, bloating and empacho, or overacting blood sugar spikes.

As a result, brain chemistry is also altered, which affects the capacity of the ear to process the sonic signals it receives. To cite a proof, how does one explain the mix-up between glutathione and malathion?

“Yong malathion, nakakapagpaputi ba talaga yon?” cluelessly asked one in the group.  Opps, wrong object. But that may be a valid question. For one thing sure, if you gulp it down–you’ll surely end up white and ashen as death.

Just then, this case of mistaken identity just explodes and the unruly group conversation becomes all tangled and garbled up–like hand-held walkie-talkies on different channels plagued with staticky transmission. It’s hard to believe that this band of sounds- raised persons who ruled the disco dance floors of the 70’s and 80’s and survived the onslaught of triple digit decibels, are now just a whisper away from hearing aids. Are they victims of the era’s ear-splitting rock soundtracks? Or just having the hilarious, if inevitable, onset of aging?

And yet, regardless of the unsynchronized mode of exchange, the semaphoric waving and shouting, it is our proud badge of honor that we still perfectly understand one another without anyone getting offended. More astonishingly, we can afford to laugh uninhibitedly and self-deprecatingly at our gaffes and blunders.

Friendship certainly has a way of sorting out and making sense out of all the non-sequiturs, phonetic aberrations, and cross lines that litter our conversations—as we navigate the diminishing wavelength of hearing. Because, in the end, we get to reach through one another and enjoy the zany nonsense. And we acknowledge not only our mutual medical challenges, but we accept the unstoppable wages of age—even the embarrassing occurrence of weakening eardrums.

But maybe that’s the way senior friends are. We travel along uncharted sound waves and get to unravel and decipher tangled thoughts amid the noise of everyday life. And being soul siblings, we are gifted with the ability to hear the whispered messages of friendship that thrives on silence. Even with hearing that struggles to decipher words, it clearly hears and understands the beating of the heart, which even in the throes of death comes on loud and strong, amplified by the power and resonance of love.

“Antoy kuanmo?” “Telek ka la amo.”