H is for Hearing Aids Turned Off
King of Cups
Still waters,
Not because they lack depth,
But because they’ve learned that not everything requires a ripple.
Holding space without overflowing.
Steady in the rising, rooted in the swell.
The storm arrives, the calm remains.
The average human blink is a third of a second.
A wink is longer.
Slower.
Deliberate.
You can’t wink by accident. It’s not reflex. It’s communication.
A shared truth without a single sound.
Roughly 60% of people can’t even do it with both eyes, which somehow makes it more impressive.
Winking is learned behavior – social, not survival.
Bill used to flick his hearing aids off mid-chaos.
Not rudely. Not with a huff or a sigh or a muttered “Jesus, these kids.”
Just a tiny switch on each ear, a slow lean back in the chair, and a wink in my direction that said: “I’m still here. I’m just taking the edge off.”
Bill is a man who knows how to stay.
Not loudly.
Not in the way that demands recognition.
But in the way that means something’s being held, quietly and on purpose.
He’s not the dad I grew up with. Mine was all volume and volatility, carpenter hands that slammed, snapped, pointed.
Bill’s hands have fixed toilets, emptied quarters from washing machines, and still carry motorcycle helmets with the same calm steadiness – like he’s never been in a hurry in his life.
Maybe that’s why I notice.
Because I wasn’t raised in patience.
Because I come from the people who fill silence just to hear something.
Because I still sometimes think love has to announce itself to count.
Bill’s love doesn’t announce.
It settles in.
And when the house filled with noise, not the metaphorical kind, but the very real, very shrill pitch of five children under six screaming about whose turn it was to use the green bowl, one crying because the other looked at them “too loud,” Bill would stay seated.
He wouldn’t flinch.
He wouldn’t raise his voice.
He wouldn’t offer solutions or strategies or suggestions about discipline.
He would simply reach up, switch off the aids, and stay.
Sometimes he’d rock a baby.
Sometimes he’d sip his coffee and nod along like he was still tuned in.
Sometimes he’d catch my eye across the room and give me a wink, the smallest signal of self-preservation I’ve ever seen.
Bill’s wink is not performative.
It’s not a joke.
It’s a soft nod from someone who has been through louder things than toddlers.
A man who doesn’t need to hear every word to be with you.
You don’t get that kind of wink without some history behind it. Not just emotional, neurological.
The same muscle that makes you blink, the orbicularis oculi, makes you wink too. But blinking is reflex. Winking is control. One eye. On purpose. A tiny signal that says: “Watch this.”
It’s not instinct. It’s taught. Social, not survival. You don’t need it to live. You need it to connect. Winking is what happens when your body learns to speak in gestures that only some people hear.
Bill’s wink is that. Learned. Specific. Quiet.
It says: “I’ve reached my limit.”
It says: “I’m here, but I’m choosing quiet.”
It says: “I don’t need to hear every word to be with you.”
And still, he never left the room.
The hearing aids were never about disconnection.
They were about knowing your limits.
Knowing that toddlers are loud and chaos is inevitable
and love is not the same as endurance.
You don’t have to hear every shriek to be present.
You don’t have to be overwhelmed to prove you care.
The volume dimmed, but the presence didn’t.
That kind of patience doesn’t get passed down in my family.
But I see it in him.
I feel it in the way he sits in a room like an anchor,
steady and unmoved.
Not detached, rooted.
Not fading, choosing.
Never flinched.
A baby would scream.
Someone would spill juice on a carefully arranged row of Hot Wheels cars.
A child would run full speed into the couch arm and start wailing.
The chaos would keep rising.
And Bill would stay.
He’d pass the chips.
He’d hold a baby.
He’d sip his coffee.
He’d flick the switch.
He’d wink.
And somehow, I’d feel calmer just knowing he was still in the room.
Sometimes presence is loud.
Sometimes it’s quiet.
Sometimes it’s a man in his seventies, sitting in the middle of a preschool hurricane,
turning off the hearing aids and staying put.
That wink is a blueprint.
A tiny instruction manual for peace.
It says: You don’t need to leave.
You just need less noise.
And then it says nothing else at all.
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