The Long Silences in Grief

Lake Livingston

We had been talking off and on for several months.  She lost her husband of 40 years to a fast growing cancer.  It was only 6 months from diagnosis to his death.  At first, she was lost in a world of bewildering feelings and circumstances.  She had spent 5 of those six months believing that he would pull through.  She only had a few weeks to prepare for life without him.

She had coped very well.  She was able to lean on her family and friends.  She worked through all of the details surrounding the death.  Probate was almost complete and she was beginning to find her way as a widow in her new life.  There was just this one thing that continued to trouble her, the long silences in her life.

She enjoyed the commotion that came with raising a family.  She, her husband , and the kids enjoyed solving their own and the world’s problems over breakfast.  Their house was usually filled with the sounds of an active family living their lives.  When the nest became empty, the sounds changed and she learned to enjoy the moments the two of them shared.  Sometimes they talked and sometimes they simply lived in the quiet of two people who loved each other very much.  But in these last few months the silence in her house has become unbearable.

“The silence in my life is consuming more and more of my day.   I eat my meals in silence.  I do my house work in silence.  I sit in silence.  But the worst silence comes at the end of the day when I lay in a bed we shared for 40 years.  I miss his shifting and turning, stealing the covers, and settling in to sleep.  I miss his breathing and the gentle snoring that reminded me that he was there.  Those long silences every night wake up the grief inside.  I can’t take those long, lonely silences.”

Silence can become life shattering in our grief.  It is an unwelcome part of the new normal that demands accommodation.  Some can cover up the silence with the TV or radio.  But for many, the silence is “too loud”.  The reality of silence in grief is that it does not surround us, it rises from within us.  The silence comes from a mind and soul that has lost the person they most want to hear.  It is not the quiet that they fear, it is the silence from within that that overwhelms us, especially during the periods of stillness in our daily lives.

This silence is created in the void of loneliness, a natural response to involuntary isolation.  Loneliness has little to do with the presence of people around us.  We can be intensely lonely in the midst of the largest crowd.  When quiet naturally settles in on our lives in grief and we feel particularly isolated from the one we have loved, the silence grows in intensity.  These long silences grow when quietness and loneliness meet in our lives.

Quiet is a necessary part of our lives.  It allows space in our mind and soul to let go of the stuff that demands our constant attention.  It creates room for us to simply be who we are without the need to do and become.  Quiet allows us a stillness of presence that gives life to a soul that is tired and needs rest.

Unfortunately, grief can quickly fill in the space created by quiet.  We become lonely and the quiet deepens into a long, unwelcome silence.    It saps our energy.  We become lost, frightened, and even more lonely.  Escape comes only when we fall into a fitful, emotionally exhausting, and empty sleep.

How can we deal with these long, lonely silences in our grief?  The widow found a way that worked for her.  She decided that she still needed space in her daily life offered by her quiet times.  For her, the key was in the loneliness that hijacked her quiet time.  She needed to find a way to keep the relationship alive with her husband.  She placed a picture of him on the dinner table and would talk about her day, solve the world’s problems, or simply enjoy looking at his face and remembering the good times they shared.  At night, we would write a letter to him about her day, her hopes and dreams, and, at times, talk about how much she missed him.  As she said, “It reminded me that I was not alone.  He was still there with me in the most important ways, just as he always had been.”  And then she added, “Just as he always will be!”

The widow dealt with the long silence by transforming the loneliness into aloneness.  She did so by allowing the quiet to become a companion, not an adversary.  She chose to take advantage of the quiet by focusing her heart and mind on the relationship she still shared with her life’s companion.  She listened to all that she had learned about herself and her world while sharing her life with him.  She listened for his voice as it whispered in her ear or appeared on the pages of her journal.  She experienced the continuing connection that binds them together.

In time, these letters and meals with the picture will cease.  She will work out her own accommodation with the new normal of her grief.  There will still be periods of sadness but the loneliness will no longer invade every moment of silence.  I hope that, in time, she will be able to reclaim the quiet in her life.  In so doing she will enjoy being who she is.  She will sit with herself as a person who has been, is, and will be much loved.

Peace,

Bob