If I had three days to hear
Media
Part of Panorama
- Title
- If I had three days to hear
- Creator
- Griswold, Lucille
- Language
- English
- Year
- 1965
- Rights
-
- Abstract
- The power of a mind to keep the memory of sounds in years of deafness.
- Fulltext
- ■ The power o£ a mind to keep the memory of sounds in years of deafness. IF I HAD THREE DAYS TO HEAR •My young friend, Virginia, has asked me what I would do if, for three days, I could hear again. Many long years ago, when I learned that I was to be totally deaf for life, I pro mised that when I entered this “silent world” I would carry with me such vivid me mories of sound that the loss of hearing would never be came unbearable. Yet as the years passed, those memories dimmed—and now I can no longer watch a bird’s throat swelling in song and hear the music in my mind. So, if I had grant ed to me three days of per fect hearing, on the first day I would search for, and listen to, sounds I have never heard. I would listen to a giant plane as it zoomed across the sky and disappear ed—a tiny fleck against fleecy clouds. I would know the song it sings to my son who is a flier. I would turn on a radio and pray that I would hear Bing Crosby singing White Christmas, as I marveled at the miracle of broadcasting. In the evening of that first day, I would seek out a symphony orchestra, and I would remember great voices —those of Caruso, SchumannHeink, Mary Garden—as I listened to the mellow tones of the cello. At dawn the second day, I would wander into fields and woods, searching for a little brook that would talk to me as it murmured over moss-grown rocks. I would hark to the wind sighing among trees and grasses; I would listen for the call of a lark, the chirp ing of robins. And at dusk I would hear their sleepy twittering as they settled for the night. Then, in the black-dark hours, I would hear the stealthy sounds of things 58 PANORAMA moving in the night, and I would fall asleep to the sound of rain pattering on my roof, and when I waken ed it would be the third and last day of hearing, so... At dawn, I would seek one sound to which I would listen all the day, and I would engrave that, sound so deeply on my mind and heart that I would be able to hear it forever and ever I would hear and listen and thrill to another sound which I have never heard —the voice of my son. — Lu cille Griswold, in Coronet. KINDNESS COSTS SO LITTLE All ,of us can give appreciation, kindness, in terest, loyalty, understanding, encouragement, tol erance—and a score of other little portions of our selves. Each of us should "major” in the items in which we are "long,” and fill in with the others. Suppose I am passing a neighborhood store in which I notice a particularly attractive window display. I say to myself, "someone put real thought into trimiming that window, and he or she ought to know that at least one passerby appreciates it.” So I stop in, ask1 for the manager, and compliment him on the display. I find it always pleases a merchant to know that his windows are noticed, even though I may not buy a penny’s worth of the merchandise dis played in them. In one instance the clerk who trimmed the windows I praised received a raise in pay as a result of my compliment. — David Dunn JStEPUDZBKBER 1965 59