When I was in elementary school, I loved to sing in our little choir. I remember trying my best to sing out, to listen for my part, to remember which round our little group was supposed to come in on. I was not very good, although my mother said I had a beautiful voice.
When I was eight, I had my first ear surgery to remove a cyst. By the time I was nine it had grown back, so the bones that reverberated sound were removed—and I was left mostly deaf in my left ear. I remember closing my right ear with my hand and listening to the world through my hammerless ear, processing the strange feeling that everything sounded so far away, like I was listening to the world underwater. To this day if you ask me where the blare of an ambulance siren is coming from I will spin and spin and still point in the opposite way.
All this meant my choir career was cut tragically short. I tried my best. But with only one ear I could never quite catch the note I was supposed to sing. I couldn’t quite hear my neighbors, and after a few awkward, out-of-tune sounds and my classmates looking strangely at me, I learned to mouth the words or whisper-sing.
I rarely sing these days, even in worship. I maybe hum or sing just enough to feel the tremble in my chest, but never loud enough to betray what I am not hearing.
