I was hurting, just kind of achy all over. I couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from, but I knew why, it was because it was too quiet. I pulled the covers up over my naked shoulders and let the tips of my eyelashes meet the bottoms of my eyelids, they whispered, “just go to sleep.” As I laid there doing a 400 meter dash in the silence of the swimming pool known as my thoughts, I realized something.
Whether you want to or not, you can hear silence…you can see it, you can touch it and if you’re like me, you can feel it.
There was no email in my inbox and the status on Facebook hadn’t changed in awhile. My eyes scanned the last text message I’d received, “A lil bit of chicken fried, cold beer on Friday night…Ay dios mio El Centro :)” and my reply, which was left silent, hanging nervously on the ledge of a drop-zone roller coaster.
I should have known because the silence was consuming, surrounding me like a nimbus cloud. If only I'd listened more closely, I would have heard it. That's when I started paying attention.
It was in the echo of the elevator as it took me to the 9th floor. I could see it in the marks of black rubber soles on the pale tile of the ICU as the nurses scurried between stations. I felt it pulse through the tiny two-second spike of the red line on the blood pressure monitor. Silence was the jumbled up mess in my stomach, the turmoil between wishful thinking and living in reality.
And silent was my first tear when it fell in vain, despite arguing with myself to be strong.
Silence is always compelling, it exists for just this purpose, it’s one of the most powerful forms of expression.
Silent is the wish you make on the first star that peeks out through a barren sky and believing you were the only person who wished upon it.
Silence can be heard, it’s the sound the wind made during the deep breath you took when you thought of an old friend…and wondered if in that moment they were thinking of you too.
Silence can be seen, in the snapshot he uploaded, the one with his arms across his chest and his head down in defeat…the photo that was worth more than the thousand words people speak of.
Silence can be felt because it has wings, it flies on the sweet smell of a familiar cologne that instantly took you all the way back to your first kiss with the man who wore it.
Silence can be held, and sometimes it doesn’t feel good, because sometimes it's that feeling in your empty heart verses the logical one in your crowded mind.
Silence is a space…the one you save in your soul, for your first love, or maybe someone who passed away that you hope to see again someday in another place.
Silent is the side of the bed where he sleeps, the side that’s cold because he’s miles away fighting for our country in Iraq.
Silent is that moment at dusk, just before the last arch of the orange glow sinks below the horizon, when the final hint of sun glares just enough to catch your eye.
Silence is that second when you first heard the news, the one where the world seemed to hold it’s breath. And silent is the hope that follows, the one that’s based on blind faith versus the not-so-wonderful facts.
And if you’re wondering if I’ve been waiting to hear from you, the answer is yes, I am…but I’ve gotten used to your silence, it’s more profound than any words you ever spoke.