Running from silent.

Silence. 

Loneliness steals in with silence.

It replaces the lull and hum of conversation that used to fill our moments.

Even when he was so very sick, he would murmer his opinions... We would engage in conversations. 

I would lean in to catch each whisper... Now there is a strange silence that belongs to these quiet evenings.

That's the beauty of a love- the right to conversation in those moments before sleep arrives. The words that are spoken...the sometimes constant chatter as life is lived. Did I ever recognise the privilege that conversation afforded to us? When the kids fell asleep and the wine was poured or the coffee was made...We would speak. TV might be on... Computers would be resting on laps and a lesson would be planned, an email answered.. And we would chat.Sometimes about important things, often about nothing much. 

How wonderful to talk about nothing much.

How I miss the nothing much conversations.

I've discovered something about myself- this process of grief uncovers a new knowing of how I tick. 

I've discovered that I run from silences.

I fill the spaces with sound..

I talk to the cat.

I play the piano for long hours.

I sing lullabies to my babes.

I text and talk to friends who are kind enough to realise that I'm filling a void that I have never known.

And yet I know that there is coming a moment when I will have to stop.

Stop talking and singing my silences away.

Stop running from this void of quiet.

It is disconcerting. This new lesson of being alone.

But it's a lesson that I am learning.

I'm learning to be still.

To stop chasing the right to be heard.

There is a beauty in stillness.. I just need to linger there. 

After I have pushed aside lonliness, there is beauty in the calm.

If you are living beside someone who fills your moments with opinion and useless facts, reminders and nothing much conversations-

Do me a favour..

The next time you are talking to your love, in between washing dishes and folding socks, as you chatter about nothing much... Will you pause and relish that sound. The privilege of a conversation.