She walked into the room, boisterous, jovial, ready to help.
“How are you today?”
My dad put his finger to his lips.
“I can hear fine,” my dad said.
And he can. Eighty years of practice have not dimmed the resonance of his ear drums.
The visitor, who talks to lots of older people, assumed that he needed volume. From his chair, it sounded like she was shouting at him.
She thought he needed short sentences so he could keep up with her. The truth? She needed short sentences so she could keep up with him.
Once she discovered that she didn’t have to fill the volume of the room with volume, they had a conversation. Each discovered the human behind their roles.