Resonance

How does one describe sound to a deaf person? Conversely, how does one that is deaf describe deafness to a hearing person? I have pondered these two questions all my life having grown up with someone that is almost entirely deaf. From birth, my brother has required a hearing aid to hear due to a developmental malformation of his ear canals. His deafness and awkward appearance has influenced him physically, socially, and spiritually.

My younger brother by one year, Jens Kenneth Benson, was born on February 18, 2000, at St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. As the receiving nurse inspected Jens in her arms, her eyes widened and smile inverted. “Call the neonatologist”, she whispered frantically.

In under a minute, Jens was ushered out of the room followed by a jolting slam of the door. Hours passed and the worry in my parents’ minds grew exponentially until a specialist came into the room for an urgent briefing.

“Susan, David, sorry to keep you waiting in this state. We have examined your son and become familiar with the situation.”

“Susan, I understand you are a doctor as well?”

“Yes, an orthopedic surgeon.”

“Splendid. You will be able to better understand what I am about to tell you. Your son has a malformation of his ears and canals. As you can see here, these are photos of his left and right ears:

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On the outside, it appears that his left ear is less developed than the right. Inside, however, our X-rays have revealed to us that his ear canals are sealed shut. This means that sound cannot pass through the eardrum and be received by the cochlear nerve, the nerve that transmits auditory sensory information to the brain.”

As my father bowed his head in disbelief, my mother leaned forward with her last ounce of hope and asked, “Will my son ever hear?”

The specialist replied with a relieving smile, “I am glad you asked that, Dr. Bonar. Yes, however, he will require assistance via a hearing aid. We have multiple options for you to-”

“A hearing aid?” pondered my father.

“That’s right. We have multiple options for you to pursue, however, we recommend a non-invasive device starting out. Take a look here:

These hearing aids allow him to hear via bone conduction. The hearing aids themselves receive audio signals from the air and convert those sounds into vibrations. They are pressed up against the skull via an elastic band around the head. This allows the devices to vibrate the skull, sending auditory information to the cochlear nerve, and then to the brain. Take these home so he can start wearing the hearing aids after two weeks time.”

My parents and the specialist shook hands. “God bless you,” my mother whispered with a relieving gasp and my father nodded in thanks.

Fast forward three years and my brother was surviving preschool. He had to wear a headband wrapped conspicuously around his head to hold his hearing aid in place. Classmates constantly made fun of his headband and mocked his hard of hearing.

One time, Jens and a few classmates waited outside the drop off zone for their rides home. “Hey Jens, are you gonna go home and play with your barbie dolls?” a classmate barked.

Jens did not hear. The classmate pushed him on the shoulder and raised his voice, “Hey Jens, I said are you gonna go home and play with your barbie dolls!”

“Wha-? Baby yogs? Hawwy and Kodak?” Jens faintly replied.

“BAR. BIE. DOLLS! Do you even speak english?”

“Jonathan and Jens! Over here!” my mother screamed from the circle drive.

I ran over to the car, swung my backpack into the back seat, and before I could get in she yelled, “Go get Jens. He’s over there. I don’t think he heard me.”

I heard chanting as I approached the scene, “Jens is a sissy girl! Jens is a sissy girl with a headband!”

His face was bright red and was crying, but turned back to normal when I nudged and told him, “Jens, mom is here. It’s time to go home.”

We both got into the car, relieved the day was over. “How was your day at school?” mom inquired.

My brother and I both let out a long, unenthusiastic, “Good.”

“What did you learn today?” she pondered.

I replied, “I made paper mache of dragons and learned about penguins in Antarctica-”

She directed her attention to Jens, “That sounds fun. Jens how about you?”

“Wha-?” Jens replied looking out of the window.

She raised her voice a little louder and looked into the rear-view mirror, “I said: ‘what did you learn today?’”

“I-I learned abou-I forgot. Baby yogs?” he said hesitantly.

“Baby dogs? Did you tell them about Harry and Kodiak?” she replies in disbelief. Harry and Kodiak were the names of our two pet dogs at the time.

“Yeah,” Jens responded with his eyes gazing upon the laughing children pointing fingers at him from outside the car.

Over the next few months, I would overhear my parents talking in their bedroom about Jens’ dire situation. Jens’ current hearing aid was not loud enough for him to hear anything quieter than a shout and my parents were desperate to prevent him from getting held back in school. One night, they were both elated. “I received word back from a doctor that will take our case,” whispered my father.

I could hear my mother jump out of bed and, above a whisper, say, “Oh Jesus, tell me, who?”

“His name is Dr. Niparko from Johns Hopkins up in Baltimore. He specializes in otoneurology and can fix Jens’ hearing for good.” he replies.

“For good? How?” she shoots back.

My father explains in detail, “He says he will have to implant osseointegrated screws into the skull on both sides of the head that will connect to hearing aids. The hearing aids will receive the sound, the screws will vibrate the skull, and then the cochlear nerves will pick up the vibrations. He will be able to hear at the level of a normal child.”

My mother tears in her eyes jumped back into the bed, “Thank God. How soon can we see him?”

My father and brother flew out to Baltimore for an appointment within a month and had the procedure done within two. Over the next few years, his hearing drastically improved. His speaking and learning ability returned to their normal levels for a child of his age and he no longer had to wear a headband.

Jens’ social battle with his malformation was far from over. Maturing as an individual, his malformed ears and deafness affected his every choice and related circumstance (6:38). Over the years spanning middle school and high school, he slowly became more introverted and antisocial. He switched many schools and was even held back one year in need of smaller classrooms and special tutoring to compensate for his special condition (1:37). Physically, he started growing his hair out down past his malformed ears in order to appear normal to the outside world. His self-esteem slowly descended with time and by freshman year of high school, he was spending the majority of his days in refuge behind a harmless computer screen in a quiet bedroom.

In contrast to my brother’s disability, my ears were my prized possession. I was an avid guitar player and was playing bass guitar for my high school’s jazz band and pit orchestra. Our disparities and lack of understanding of one another constantly triggered arguments between us two. Below is one instance of our arguments.

I was 17, a sophomore, and my brother 16, a freshman. We were both attending the same high school at the time; however, my brother was struggling with grades and was in the process of transferring to a smaller school. I regretfully remember saying something like this to him, “You’re an idiot. Transferring schools will look terrible on your transcript. I mean, what did you expect? You literally just sit in your room, never cut your hair, and play video games all day. You need to man the f**k up and come out of the closet for once.”

He replied with stray eyes, “You wouldn’t understand.”

I argued back, “Are you f**king kidding me? I put in the work. I made straight A’s and B’s on top of playing multiple sports AND working a part-time job on the weekends.”

The conversation ended with him mumbling, “It’s easier for you, and you wouldn’t understand.”

Overhearing our shouting, my father later that night sat with me in the living room with a baseball game on the TV. “Why were you shouting at Jens earlier?” inquired my dad under the dim light.

“Because he is lazy and is about to make a big mistake transferring schools.” I shot back with disgust.

“He’s not transferring schools because he is lazy.” he explained.

I tested him, “Oh, is that so? When was the last time he came out of his room or cut his hair or got a job? I can’t remember.”

He then repeated the same thing Jens always said, “It’s easier for you. You wouldn’t understand.”

I threw up my arms and argued, “Everybody says that. It’s a cliche. He’s just hiding from his problems instead of facing them, and that’s going to bite him in the arse one day.”

He then laid it all out, “Jonathan, he’s transferring schools because he can’t hear inside large classrooms with all of the background noise. It’s not because he’s lazy. And you were making fun of his hair? Give me a break. You know why he grows out his hair, right?”

At that moment, I successfully predicted what he was about to say in my mind, “He grows out his hair in order to hide his malformed ears,”

He went on, “That’s right. He’s your brother and his brother is the last person he needs making fun of him. It’s about time you hear me out for once.”

I thought a lot about that late night conversation with my dad. He was right. I did not understand because I have two perfectly working ears and a normal body that I do not have to worry about on a “nanosecond” basis (6:38). As a perfectly normal individual by society’s standards, I was able to work and be successful without any special accommodations. In Jens’ case, his disability made it almost impossible for him to find a suitable job or school that would accommodate his disability. In other words, Jens was not hiding from the world, the world was hiding from him.

At the time of writing this narrative, I am enrolled in a class studying Nazi Occupied Europe and the Holocaust. Upon analyzing my brother’s testimony, I have drawn many parallels between my brother and the victims of the Nazis leading up to and during World War II. Hitler’s ethnic cleansing of Germany and Europe not only targeted Jews, but also non-Aryan ethnicities, homosexuals, and the disabled. Just as these people were deemed unfit to work by the Nazis, Jens has also been denied several jobs by society today. He explained that he had to cross out many of his top career paths due to the inadequate level of accommodation available for his disability (10:07). The less tolerant a society is of certain people, the closer it is to committing mass atrocities like the Holocaust by Nazi Germany. Therefore, it is important for a society to adequately accommodate those less fortunate and strive to be more inclusive.

Today I am elated to see Jens thriving. He is now in his senior year at Accelerated Schools of Overland Park, a school that specializes in teaching kids with various disabilities. Not only is he making great grades, but he also has many friends, and holds a part-time job on the weekends. The most memorable part of the interview for me was when he told me that even though his deafness cripples him physically, it strengthens his character and teaches him how to be a better person (23:41).