Last year, Kamala received a cochlear implant to restore her hearing. For nearly 25 years, as her hearing degenerated, she had communicated with Gope through lip reading, notes and a series of hearing aids that helped only a little.

Gope's voice too grew weak over time, the result of throat cancer. In 2000, doctors at Kaiser Permanente-Santa Clara removed his larynx, replacing it a few months later with a throat valve that allows him to speak in a raspy voice.

The first word Kamala heard from Gope -- "Congratulations!" -- might have sounded like gravel to anyone else, but not to her.

Gope, 77, helped her relearn sounds long forgotten -- this is the wind, these are the birds. Today, the Mirchandanis talk freely about their three children and six grandchildren. Kamala listens to the wind chimes outside their apartment. She converses with her children on the telephone, which she vastly prefers to their former e-mail chats. The couple, who emigrated from India in 1987 and have been married for nearly a half-century, now bicker without resorting to written notes.

"It's so much better now," said Kamala, who is 74. "We are both very happy."

By Barbara Feder Ostrov