His voice has changed, although I know it will return. He normally is mistaken for an American, although we are Australian, he speaks with an accent acquired from television viewing and an interest in different sounding words. I think he will be gifted in comedic impersonations.

He whispers sometimes but mostly uses his hands because he is too young to write his requests or needs.

He nods a lot and makes up his own interesting little forms of sign language as he heals from his recent throat surgery.

He reminds me of the lady that lived in the modest shearers cottage on the hill in the seventies. She was a mother of three girls and wife to a simple man. She was my best friends mother.

I never understood why she didn’t speak.

She never said a word.

I’d had some experience with alternative forms of conversation at a very young age because my deaf uncle and aunt, from a seedy suburb in Sydney, used sign language to speak. They had a big round red flashing light above their front door and when the telephone rang or the doorbell was pressed, the light would be activated. It would spin and spin, shooting off red light into the room. Once, we visited their house and the light was spinning and blaring red, red, red, and I never understood completely why they were deaf but I knew they couldn’t hear. The light scared me though. It’s urgency and obviousness caused me to stiffen my spine and be thankful for my ears. The warning light reminded me of ambulances and fire trucks and things that were troubled.

The lady at the top of the hill used her hands to clap her children home. She’d stand on her little porch, under the tin awning and she would clap her hands together loudly three times. Strangely, my best friend would hear her mother clapping and would make her way home promptly. Melody had really good hearing. So did her wordless mother. I once mistook her broken vocal chords for deafness and said something very inappropriate. She soon scolded me with her eyes and taught me a subtle lesson.

I asked Melody why her mother didn’t speak and she told me she didn’t have a tongue. Each time thereafter when her mother yawned or laughed with a silent wide mouth, I’d strain my neck trying to inconspicuously look into that hole in her face for evidence of a tongue. Or not.

It took me until my early twenties to think about the irony of a mother with no voice, naming her daughter melody. Still, I’m not sure if she’d lost her tongue before or after her third daughter was born.

I don’t know whether her tongue was removed from her mouth or if it was perhaps hiding lazily between her yellowing teeth. Perhaps it had given up, or been struck by a new age mysterious illness with initials for it’s name (a shortened version of an illness nobody can pronounce unless you actually have it). Something with vocal fatigue in its’ title.

I never once caught a glimpse of her tongue though.

It is sad to imagine living as a parent and not being able to communicate verbally with your children.

Clapping loudly and madly honestly worked very well as a discipline and her eyes were extremely expressive, but there was always a space where her voice should’ve been.

When I was sixteen years old, my boyfriends mother spoke with an electrolarynx. She had a hole in her neck where her voice box had once been. The first time I telephoned his house, I was nervous with teenage angst and his mother answered the phone. She sounded like a robot and was difficult to understand. I didn’t know about his mothers medical condition yet and I thought he and his brother were playing practical jokes on me. I rudely and naively made a reply suggesting I wasn’t being fooled and I hung up the phone. I was highly embarrassed when I first met her. It took me a little while to be able to confidently communicate with her, but we became great friends whilst I was dating her eldest son. She stood by me when it ended horribly and violently. I’ll never forget listening to the cassette tape of her voice, produced shortly before her operation. She had the sweetest cockney accent I’d ever heard. Her voice soft and womanly.

I’ve recently had my thyroid removed and my voice went through some slight changes. There is a small scar across the front of my throat and it reminds me that my voice box is still behind it.

I’m not oblivious to the running thread in my life involving throats and voices. From a very early age, I have been confronted and lessened in the importance of words and the sounds that emanate from our vocal chords.

My father carried a booming voice and when raised, it would make knees knock and lines of conformity appear in his favour. I think I’ve inherited that. I try to be conscious of it and not scare the children.

Sometimes, I yell far too loudly or run off at the mouth, oblivious to the gift that sound and words are.

I write words passionately and I believe it is all no coincidence.

Silence is a gift at times, and as my son heals from recent surgery to remove his tonsils and adenoids, I miss his confident and funny chatter. I also miss his complaining and nagging.

All voices are important.

© ryan