Comfortable Silence...

“I have learned now that while those who speak about one's miseries usually hurt, those who keep silent hurt more.”
C.S. Lewis

My closest friends know most of how hard I've struggle this past year, what's been going on in my life that left me at rock bottom... But few, if any, until I started blogging about it, and finally talking a little about it, knew how close I was to ending it, giving up... how I just didn't have anything left. There's something about silence that I've experienced while going through all this... The silence of fear, pain, loneliness and defeat are louder than the most violent of battlefields. They reverberate so loudly your body and soul trembles with it, and the ache left behind is a bruise that is slow and painful to heal...

I know this because I was there. If your lucky, eventually, it becomes a quiet hush in the back of your mind. You catch a wisp of it on the air, and you have to strain to listen for it. And after a time, and a long fight to save yourself, and struggle to be who you were, the bruises are faded, healing... now again, a nudge or bump will bring them back fresh, but all in all... recovery might finally be well under way...

More than anything, I miss and love the silences that made the person I used to be.

Do you have one of those friends that their life is a constant whirlwind of noise, motion and activity? They seem to be a flurry of kids, life, spouse, work, volunteering, girl scouts, soccer, church... slamming doors, barking dogs, boiling pots on the stove, spilled milk, ringing phones, stuck garage doors, painting the bathroom... the list is endless. And exhausting. And yet they seem to be thriving and loving every minute of it. Just thinking about it stresses me out and makes me want to hide in a closet.

Silence can measure the level of a relationship and life like no other way possible. There the awkward silence of a first date. The cold silence of an angry couple running out of love, or the loving silence of 70 years of marriage, grateful as they snuggle in and sleep together one more night. The fresh new silence of an early morning sunrise, the heavy silence of depression or pain. The sweet silence of the night as your family and home settle in for slumbers and dreams, safe and warm. Through all the challenges I've had in my life lately, my comforting silences are long gone, and the roaring silence of loneliness, fear and lost faith are left in their wake. The sounds of a shattered life are far louder.

" ...God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls." Mother Teresa

My family didn't attend church. We lived out in the middle of nowhere in a small Idaho farm community. Across three fields and a couple country roads I could see a beautiful little cabin country church. Back then it was ok to let your kids wander the countryside, and I started going, by myself when I was 7 or 8. There I met Mrs. Allison. She was the oldest woman I think I've ever met in my life. She was wrinkly, her grey hair in a tidy bun, driving her red and white 1940's jeep. And she was beautiful, wonderful. For the rest of my life I'll remember sitting with Mrs. Allison in that little log cabin church as she would help me find the scripture a lost lonely little girl could never find. I'll remember the woody smell and the quiet pride of it all. She was kind, patient, giving, and loved children. Her manner and voice were that of calm, sturdy faith and sitting in silence with her was warm and comforting. Not too long after my older brother started going to church with me, and Mrs Allison took him under her wing and adopted him as well. She always had time for us, explained things to us that we couldn't understand, and most of all, just let us be who we were and loved us for it.

Because of our growing in faith together and our common bonds, my relationship with Keith grew in leaps and bounds. With 8 years between us, he was everything amazing a little girl could imagine. He became my entire world. He tought me how to fish before I was taller than the pole, and how to drive Dad's favorite car. He drug me with him to football games, friend's houses, road trips, and motorcycle rides... And although we had many conversations that to this day I still remember and will always live by, I remember sitting there on the banks of the water, in silence, unspeaking, fishing, completely comfortable, happy; a part of something amazing. It was the kind of silence that all you could hear was the wind moving across the water and the occasional beetle or cricket's song. The "plop" of the fly hitting the water. Anything louder than that would have ruined memories that have gotten me through so many struggles and lonely times... After he died, the silence of his absence left scars so deep I still feel them today. That was the first time in my young life that I learned there isn’t always comfort in silence.

When Andy was little, people used to comment on our silent conversations all the time. All we had to do was look at each other. There was a slight nod from him, a raised eye brown from me... a flash in his eye and a look from me. Back and forth we’d go. Easy enough for us, a total mystery to others. We read each other like books, and generally knew exactly what the other one was thinking. We did it all the time. There something about sharing a bond that deep with your child that nothing can ever compare to. I miss that with him. I admit, that with all the challenges, pain, and failures I've had in my life, I lost the one true connection I had with Andy. There's something about becoming a man of his own and how our lives somehow became separate entities that even though we are still close, and can still look at each other and usually have a good idea, it's harder, and rarely happens.

The silences in my life now are a world’s difference than what I’m used to. They remind me of how I’ve screwed up, been screwed, lonely, hurt and lost… but I’m working on… Once day alone, on the ledge of Miller’s cave, over looking the valley and river below, the silence of the day brought a touch of healing I needed. The quiet morning coffee on the porch of our new home, in our new town with a fresh start, my head bowed silently in prayer in a church where I finally find comfort… hopefully someday I’ll find myself back in a place in life where I’m comfortable in the silences I’ve found, made new ones that bring me strength and contentment, and I can leave the ones behind that scream out loud of the pain I’m working so hard to get away from… And all in all these past few months… the volume of those silences screaming out at me are getting softer… quieter… silent.