Familiar Songs

It’s the beginning of a new year and you know what that means, right?  Yes, it’s time for looking back at the prior one.  The difference is I’m not looking back to highlight the good and the bad that happened, but to catch up on my CI progress since it’s been so long since I last wrote about it.

My memory isn’t as good as it used to be. Thankfully I took some notes as things happened so I can be more detailed in sharing my experiences. 

A few days after I was activated, we were listening to Christmas music on one of the music channels on cable while we decorated the Christmas tree and house.  I had my back to the TV as I dusted a shelf when I heard Kate Smith sing in my ear, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas”.  The words were clear, her voice as I remembered from prior years. It took me by surprise because everything else had been so static and mechanical sounding.  It was as though Kate Smith herself was singing through a megaphone into my ear in my house!  But that couldn’t be possible since she died in 1986.  I Googled it.  I turned around to verify that was the song playing and I saw her name on the TV screen.  From there on I continued  playing  my own version of Name That Tune.  When I heard the contagious upbeat rhythm of another song, I knew it was Dominic the Donkey.  I put my ear to the speaker and could understand quite a bit of the words and the music didn’t sound as garbled as some do. 

Listening to old classic Christmas songs that are familiar to me helped me with my recognition as I continued decorating that day and throughout the weeks leading up to the holidays.   There was something reassuring about hearing Nat King Cole croon “…And so it’s been said many times, many ways, Merry Christmas to you” even if it sounded a little rough around the edges.  It was exciting and encouraging. 

A couple of weeks later we watched Charlie Brown’s Christmas, another familiar staple during the holiday season.  I was able to distinguish between Charlie Brown, Linus and Lucy’s voices, especially when the background music was softer.  It was the first show I watched where I could clearly detect and recognize the voices, but better yet, I was able to understand more of what they were saying without reading all the captions.

I hope you enjoyed hearing the familiar sounds of the holidays too.  If you missed some of the sounds around you, consider getting your hearing checked your New Year’s resolution for 2015.