“Will I see you tomorrow?” Mom asked as I turned toward the stairs and bed.  I stared at her, uncomprehending.  “You see me—every day—after work,” I finally stammered out, and she could tell from my tone I thought she had done something bad, though she could not fathom what and muttered I’m sorry, and I felt bad that she felt bad that I might be annoyed, and assured her I would see her tomorrow.  When I brought vegetable spring rolls home from Costco, she cheered with both arms raised, “Spring Rolls!” and Dad quipped pleasantly, “Spring rolls is her middle name.”  Dorothy Lucille Spring Roll Baker, I thought with a chuckle, and then said the name aloud: “Dorothy Lucille Spring Roll Baker.  Has a nice ring.”  She laughed nervously, not sure if I were making fun, but hoping I wasn’t, and thinking I probably wasn’t, because I never do.  After displaying the various prepared meals I had purchased for those days I do not feel like cooking, I stacked the boxes and headed for the basement stairs and fridge.  “Don’t fall down the stairs,” Dad called after me, and I stopped in my tracks, uncomprehending.  Not wanting to challenge or enjoin or even demure, I called back cheerfully, “Thanks Dad.  I won’t fall down the stairs.”  My reaction was less humoring when, attending an out-of-town conference, I received an email from Mom, “Hi dear Roger, Your dad wanted me to email you that he is afraid for you to go hiking somewhere where you could fall over the edge of the trail.  He wants you to be careful to not go where the trail might be high up and too close to the edge of a cliff where you might fall.  He was worried about you and wanted me to tell you that immediately!”  I scowled at the computer screen and email after a long walk on a flat paved urban trail, uncomprehending.  And I sighed.  Like I often do when dinner is almost cooked after an hour in the kitchen: a long loud sigh.  Dad’s hearing is deteriorating.  I visited Erek the audiologist to have Dad’s hearing aids checked—they were working fine—and he offered kindly to come to the house to clean Dad’s ears and check his hearing.  I gawked, astonished and uncomprehending, as Erek slowly pulled a three-inch string of wax from one ear, certain what I was seeing was impossible.  No wonder Dad could not hear.  The hearing test confirmed that Dad had “severe hearing loss,” no doubt due to his early unprotected years working the house-size ore tumblers at the Utah Copper smelter.  Erek offered to purchase a pair of high-quality hearing aids for a reasonable price, through his physician’s group manufacturer discount.  “You will hear lightyears better,” Erek promised, and my brain strained at applying a photonic analogy to ears and hearing.  I decided “lightyears” simply meant “lots and lots,” and let the teaser go.  Though Dad cannot hear me from three feet away, he can hear me sighing from thirty feet away, and without fail calls out to me, in a kindly tone, “How are you doing, Rog?”  And he praises the meal as a “once in a lifetime best in the universe dinner.”  I will keep shouting until his AGX Omnia 7s arrive, after which Dad should hear my conversational tone.  I hope so.  “Good-night Mom and Dad,” I yelled.  “Knock if you need anything.  See you tomorrow.”

(Pictured above, a view of Snow Canyon, Utah, one of my favorite beautiful places in the world.)