Nothing speaks quite as eloquently as silence. If one
remains still long enough, the silence can be more deafening than the loudest
noise. Silence is the absence of words when everything else is used to
speak volumes that no words could possibly articulate. As I sit here, I
am throwing my words down on paper or in this case the screen of my computer
and then releasing them into the cyberspace that is known as the
internet. Without having made a sound, I have broken my silence.
I have been lost for far too long. My words are
uttered as a beacon, a flare in the dark abyss of this ocean of grief in which
I am drowning. All around me is the echo of my errant thoughts. I
can’t bare it anymore, this silence that is threatening to consume me.
The words I desire to hear will never be uttered. They
are etched in my memory as I last heard them but sometimes, I wonder if perhaps
I didn’t imagine them. The words that I remember hearing had been spoken
in love and had been filled with love. My life is now void of that love
and I am lost, alone in a sea of my own grief, drowning. Who will rescue
me?
It has been over two months since she died; the she, who had
dominated so much of my life that her absence has left a void the size of a
sinkhole beneath the foundation of my life. I am lost. She’s
gone. No one will find me now. I want to come back home to myself
but I no longer know where I am. I am lost.
The pain is like an ever present shadow that hovers over my
shoulders, like a deadly asp, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. It is
all consuming, like a raging forest fire and all my tears are in vain as the
fire can’t be put out with such pathetic torrents. It grips my heart like
a manacle, a tight vise made of steel from which I can’t break free. All
around is darkness and I am lost in it. My light has gone out. The
love that had been my constant guiding light will be no more. I am lost
and alone, swimming in the sea of my grief.
There is a hand and five little fingers. It reaches
for me. There is a voice that calls out my name. Mae!
The girl is gone. She has drowned in her grief.
Only the woman remains. Her shadow is larger than mine ever was.
She reaches for the hand and finds three more. Another voice cries
out. Mummy!
There is light in the distance, a shore. Breaking free
of her cocoon of pain, she moves her arms through the water of her grief.
A flutter of wings, break the silence surrounding her. She sees the
distant shore just beyond. There are small lights, shining through three
pairs of eyes, like six little dots of flame dancing on the distant shore.
She pulls herself forward, her arms treading the pain that would be her watery
grave. Her legs kick.
The voices call out her name. Mae! Mummy!
Love!
I slip and fall beneath, drowning in my pain. My loss
is too great to keep swimming. She breaks free, we are no longer
one. As I gasp my last breath, she takes her first. It’s a noise
that breaks the silence.
I am free, she cries. The sound is deafening.
Finally she understands. The wings on her back
flutter. It’s not necessary to swim , not when
you have wings to fly.
They are calling my name. Mae! Mummy!
Love!
I whisper, loud as thunder, the words spoken with the
clarity of ringing bells, I am coming home.
The silence is broken at last
and the soft whisper of the butterfly’s wings taking flight is deafening this
time, drowning out the silence instead.
