My cochlear implants give me power

For four years, I didn’t hear the world around me

For four years, I lived in comfortable silence

For four years, I communicated using only the two good hands God gave me

For four years, I was deaf

Then a machine was put inside my head

I was told I would hear but I didn’t understand what that meant

I could hear sound but couldn’t make sense of the noises coming inside my head

I was overwhelmed

For years, I fought against wearing my cochlear implants

I didn’t like all of the sounds and the headaches they would cause

Learning to discern the words my own mother was speaking was frustrating

I spent years in speech therapy (sometimes torturously) just to say my own name

I learned to love my cochlear implants about the time that I realized

They weren’t holding me back but expanding my view on life

Listening to birds chirping, the “wrrrrr” that the fridge makes at night

and the sound of my fiance’s laugh make the struggle I went through worth it

Without them, my world would remain a silent grave

I wouldn’t be able to communicate to my family and friends

Or do something as simple as order a hamburger from my favorite place

My cochlear implants give me power

Power to be in the world and not an observer of it