This morning was all going great until I woke up. I was having quite possibly the best dream I've had in a long time. I dreamt that I had already woken up, and I heard the birds chirping right outside my window.

This might not seem like such an amazing dream to most people, but when I realized that it wasn't real, I almost burst into tears.

It's been about a month since it happened. The accident that took away my hearing forever. It seemed like a normal day, and we were driving to a friends party. But a huge 18 wheeler slammed into our little pickup truck, and something exploded in the back of the giant truck. Everyone else had gotten to safety, and I was on my way, but I guess I was too close to the explosion. And that was the last thing I ever heard. My friends all screaming at me to hurry up and get out of the way. The sound of metal ripping apart. Not exactly a great memory.

Now I have to try and live my life as normally as possible. I'm still in the process of learning sign language, and I can sort of read lips, but I'm not very good. It's hard to just develop a whole new way of living.

I shut off my violently pulsing alarm watch. That was another thing that I had to use since I became deaf. Instead of an alarm clock, my mom for me a vibrating alarm watch to help me wake up in the mornings.

I grudgingly got dressed, then walked down the stairs with my notepad and pen in hand where breakfast was waiting for me.

My mom waved, smiling cheerfully. It killed me that I couldn't hear her voice anymore. For sixteen years, it was the thing that could comfort me the most. Now that was taken away from me too.

Her lips kept moving like she was going to talk to me, but then she closed them, a sad look on her face.

Mom, I'm fine, I wrote on my notepad.

She nodded, then left the kitchen. I shrugged and took a bite of bacon, trying to put her overly sympathetic face out of my mind. I had to try and ignore the way that people looked at me like I was a wounded bird. I hated it, but it was a part of my everyday life now. I couldn't escape it, no matter how hard I tried.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and I jumped out of my chair, startled. My brother Michael held his hands up, looking apologetic.

Sorry, he mouthed. I nodded, then took a deep breath to calm down. He have me a concerned look. He grabbed my notepad and scribbled down a sentence.

Do you need anything baby sis?

I thought for a minute, then rapidly wrote a response.

Will you sing to me?

He smiled, then nodded.

I know what you're thinking. If I'm deaf, then why would I ask Michael to sing for me? Wouldn't that just make me sad that I couldn't hear it?

Michael's singing had been my favorite thing to listen to before the accident, and I was devastated when I couldn't listen to him anymore. But I had found a way around that.

He opened his mouth and began to sing, and I watched him closely, trying to create the sound of his voice in my mind. After a few minutes, he opened his arms to me, and hugged him tight, resting my head against his chest.

Sound is just vibrations. With singing, the vibrations travel through your entire body, making the singer kind of like a human symphony. It's something that I could never truly appreciate when I could actually hear his voice.

Since Michael was a baritone, his chest vibrated in a comfortable place between earthquake and a purring cat. The lower he got, the stronger the vibrations were. It was cool to feel the notes go up and then descend again. Like a roller coaster.

When he had finished, I pulled away, tears rolling down my face.

Thank you, I mouthed. He nodded, holding back tears of his own. He gave me another hug, then left me to finish my breakfast.

Michael's singing was the highlight of my day. Although the hearing loss was devastating, he was just glad that I had found something positive about all this, so he was always happy to sing for me. He was honestly the best big brother that a girl could ask for.

I finished my food and brought my plate and fork over to the sink to wash it off. Even though it was light in the kitchen, the little alcove that the sink was in always tended to be covered in shadows, so I usually had to turn on the light.

The problem was that there were two switches side by side; one for the light, and the other for the garbage disposal. I could never remember which was the right one, and if I turned on the garbage disposal, the loud noise scared me.

This was another thing that being deaf came in handy for. I reached for the switch closest to the sink, watching the light. Nothing happened. That told me that I had turned on the wrong one. I switched the garbage disposal off and turned on the light, smiling to myself.

Not a sound.

For Crystalfirex