Nightmare

I have a student who has a hearing aid. He was recently diagnosed with a hearing loss and sported a new hearing aid a few weeks ago. Since he also has Down's Syndrome, he relies on the adults in his life to help him be responsible for it.

I was called away from my classroom last week for a family emergency, and a temporary substitute was moved into my classroom until I could return. It's unfortunate that recess and lunch fell within that time. The substitute wasn't aware that I check this student's hearing aid and mold to make sure it's securely in his ear before recess.

He lost it. Sometime between the time he walked from his special education class, into my room, played on the playground, ate lunch, took a bathroom break, went back to his special ed class, returned to my room where I helped him get his backpack, and walked him to his waiting mom -- he lost his hearing aid.

It wasn't to be found in the classroom or in his special ed room. We didn't find it in the bathroom or the lost and found. No one had turned it in to the office. We could've searched the playground and pea-gravely surface under the big toys, but we knew it would've been futile. Mowers had been dispatched from our maintenance department to mow and eat the weeds on our playground the very day the hearing aid managed its escape.

The hearing aid was insured. Good move for a parent with a young child. It'll be replaced soon. And I'll try to make a concerted effort to mention the hearing aid security check the next time a sub covers my class.

I've dreamed of hearing aids the last few nights. Little blue hearing aids with red and blue ear molds and Spiderman stickers on the side. Little hearing aids lost under big toys on children's playgrounds. Or swings and slides. Lying in the grass waiting to be found. Whistling feedback at passersby. "Look at me! Here I am!" Quivering on the ground, but overlooked. Unnoticed, except by the whirring, swirling metal blades that gobbled it up and spit it out -- unrecognizable.

I awake in a sweat and realize it's only a dream. No. It's a nightmare.

It's not real. But I still take a reassuring peep inside my Dry and Store. Resting safely inside -- my little hearing aid and my N6 processor. Whew.

Miracles

Today is Easter. It is the day that Christians across the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ -- celebrations of worship, family, food, Spring, renewal, and the Easter Bunny. Somewhere in time, the commercialism overpowered the religious tone of this holiday.

This morning, I arose early, and thanked my Lord for another day on this earth. I thanked Him for His sacrifice and His grace, and I asked for His forgiveness of sins past and future and His blessing on my family, my friends, and myself.

I did not get dressed in Easter finery and attend worship in a church. I left the church I loved several years ago when the politicalization of the church colored the words and message of Christians with things neither of God nor reflective of the Christ I had read about in my Bible and learned about in my Sunday School -- a decision that once filled me with guilt, but now makes my heart sad. My religion was hijacked by Pharisees.

Instead, I perused my Facebook news feed, as I often do on Sunday mornings. Just as I expected, it was filled with Easter memes and Biblical verses about the resurrection and pictures of children hunting eggs. Easter wishes from people I've come to expect them from -- on this day anyway. One day of peace and love and civility. It's a miracle.

Miracles are a part of our lives, both big and small. We often pray for and expect the big ones. We've been conditioned by our faith in God and things greater than us, to believe that if we just pray earnestly enough and live a life deemed worthy of God, then those miracles will come. And we believe falsely that we are blessed by God because of the things we have or can get.

But in our desire to have answers to our prayers, I believe we ignore or fail to notice the multitude of miracles that are a part of our everyday existence. So we often suffer blindly and miss out on blessings because we are waiting for something we deem better and more suitable than what we have now.

There is a Facebook group that I belong to where several people suffer gladly with sudden deafness, refusing to accept the medical science and technology that IS a miracle -- suffering caused by an antiquated mindset that they will be healed miraculously if they just persist in their faith. Living miserably and inflicting their bodies with experimental treatments in the hope of getting their normal hearing back --all the while refusing to acknowledge the miracle right in front of their eyes -- the miracle of medical technology that makes hearing aids and cochlear implants possible. They reason this miracle away by saying that accepting these technological miracles for themselves will somehow limit God's ability to heal them in the future. "Getting a cochlear implant permanently damages your hearing," they contend. But if we believe that our God is all powerful, then how could we possibly believe a little thing like a cochlear implant will keep Him from healing us, if He so chooses. So why be miserable when I can hear now?

It's not the miracle they want. I understand. And it makes me wonder how many miracles I've not claimed because I was waiting for grander things...