Into silence

I've been away for a few weeks in my adopted homeland of Britain. I lived there for ten years, plus my father was born there during the Second World War. It was the first major trip for my daughter, who had been on a car trip to the US, but never out of the province before. I was pleased by how well she travelled, as I had done all I could to lessen the impact of strange places and new experiences.

For me, it was my first visit in six years, picking up long standing friendships and revisiting special places. Walking through the village in Scotland where we lived after we were first married, I was aware of the Silent Ghosts that travelled with me.

It isn't the same as being here, where everyday things were carried out with my husband and now alone. This was like a thread picked up after a long silence. There it lay, and I could pick it up and see things again that I had not thought of in years. It was like a flashback in a movie, but it didn't move the plot along.

I processed this all in silence too. I have no idea how to express the thoughts and feelings I have had. I was irritated to realize I had left my journal behind, so purchased another one to help with this.

There is silence in memory. All that has taken place, all that is gone is now in memory. Many memories are held only by me. The memory has been so very painful until recently. I have not been able to look at photos. I have shared stories about my husband and talked about him, but in myself, the remembering is coloured by every moment of the last month of his life.

That is starting to shift. Now, tinged with the sadness that it is all over, I am remembering. It's all the details I am afraid I will forget: the way his hair curled behind his ear when it needed to be cut, the little sound he made when he was thinking, the way his voice sounded.

Everything has changed, and I am gradually assimilating the change into my life, but all that is lost is now in silence. A living person has turned into dust, a living memory is turning into dust.

This stage of grief is a struggle because I am fighting for it to end. My friend in England reminded me not to rush and push myself because it hasn't been that long. She has been travelling the path of loss for seven years since her beloved husband died. I am comforted by the thought of our husbands being together in heaven.

And, knowing that the cloud of depression has lifted from his mind, I wonder how my husband engages with others in heaven now. He had withdrawn so much in the last few years, and often felt he could not relate to anyone else. Silence had encompassed him.

It has encompassed him again, and me too.

Quite a few years ago, we had a ministry session in which we were taught to throw off the silencing spirit and use our voices because they are a weapon of spiritual warfare. God SPOKE the creation into being, which is why our voice is so important. It was eye opening to me when I realized that I had been silent at times when I should have risen up and spoken out. Even me, who can chatter and articulate myself, has been silenced. But for my husband, his voice was silenced long ago.

In the silence I have learned some truths, and I know this will develop more as we go forward. My memory may be silent but it is still part of me.

I felt this way at the death of my grandpa too. He was such a storyteller, and we'd heard them all a hundred times. But I was worried that we would forget the details in the silence. Quickly, I started writing the stories down, until we found a recording he'd made of the stories. What a blessing!

Now I don't have that desperation. I don't remember or even think of all the stories, but they are part of the fabric of our family and my own life.

But there is a growing seed in my heart that my husband has unfinished business and ministry that never took place. He was gifted with great wisdom and problem solving skill that many have valued. It was one of those gifts that even those who barely knew him could see. I am lost without him in that sense. But God's wisdom is always available to me.

My future, as I saw it ahead of me, has been silenced. But I shall find my voice in time, and speak again. I do not have energy to contend for things I have already lost at least once. I am looking to The Lord in the midst of silence to provide the words I need to create a new opening in this hard brick wall.

Unless the Lord had given me help, I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death. When I said, ‘My foot is slipping,’ your unfailing love, Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy. (Psalm 94:17-19 NIVUK)