Weight of Silence

George Always loved the early morning quiet.  While Marcy and the kids are still asleep he goes down and starts the coffee.  Let's Ginger out to pee and then let’s her back in.  Feeds the dog and then feeds himself.  Then pours himself a cup of coffee and enjoys the quiet of morning.

Now usually he turns on very few lights.  He likes the vastness of quiet.  Places seem so much bigger in the quiet, much more humbling.  George needed that humbling when he was a cocky young man.  He still remembers the first time he felt that vastness as he sat in the semi-dark.

Marcy had just given birth to their third child.  It was their first girl.  George got up to get ready for work and this time he didn’t turn on his music like he usually did.  Marcy had had a restless night of sleep and their second son was up alot as well.  So George made the coffee and fed the dog and himself in silence. That quiet and darkness weighed like a ton of bricks.  The weight of responsibility had finally put its massive weight on George and he cried like he never cried before.

He realized that everything he did from here on out had to be for making the world a better place for his wife and his eventual four kids.  Not the big heroic gestures that people think about as making the world a better place but the little things that create the bigger change.

Being the best dad he could be.  Be present and caring and loving to his kids. Being the best husband he could be. Be forgiving, loving and courteous to his wife.  Listen to her, do the dishes, vacuum, laundry or whatever little thing he could do to ease her burden.  

He did his best from that day on to live up to the high expectations he put on himself.  He wanted to be the best husband and dad that ever walked planet Earth.  Some days he wasn’t even sure if he was a good husband or father let alone a great one, but that massive darkness and silence reminded him every morning to try.  

As he sat waiting for Ginger to finish her business outside he took in the glow of lights from the living room.  This time of year was the only time there was much light in the morning and it came from the Christmas tree nestled there in the corner of the room. 

Marcy always did such a great job of decorating the house so it didn’t look like Christmas threw up on the house.  There were just enough ornaments and lights on the tree that you could still see the tree.  The Nativity scene always took up the counter space in the book shelf that got the most attention.

Christmas always felt like a magical time for George even as a kid.  It seemed to be even more magical when he watched his own kids’ joy on that special day.  As little kids they would wait at the top of the stairs until everyone was awake before they could come down.  Their bodies would be emitting energy that could have lit the city of Chicago.  They were so excited. And now as young adults, all in their 20s they still have that sense of joy, it’s just much more subdued. 

They wouldn’t make it home this year.  None of them.  The boys were married and starting families of their own about 20 minutes apart down in Florida.  The girls were spending the holidays together up in Seattle.  They were not married yet and the youngest had not been able to get up to see her big sister’s new place.  With a new job, the reason she wasn’t getting time off for Christmas, came a fabulous new apartment with amazing views of the coastline and the Seattle Great Wheel.  

They all offered to come home to be with him but he told them to stick to their original plans and that they would make do.  

He always gave them subtle and not so subtle nudges that they should make sure they spent time together and learn to be close as siblings.  He thought it was important because he knew that as older parents, he and Marcy would be gone one day and the kids would be left with only each other to lean on.  The idea of them as close and kind to each other pleased him to no end.  It gave him a sense of peace. 

This Christmas Eve morning George pondered all this as he was putting the dishes in the dishwasher and putting away the toaster, because he knew Marcy always liked to come out to a clean kitchen.

It’s the little things that George was good at.  He wasn’t great at making a big deal of things but he was good at giving  great effort to be good at the little things, even if people didn't always notice them.  

George took his coffee and settled into his favorite chair that overlooked the woods behind his house.  There’s snow on the ground and as darkness gives way to the light the blinding whiteness of the snow replaces the vastness of the darkness.  

This is the chair where George waits for Marcy most mornings.  He loves following the sounds of her movements, informing his mind of her every movement.  Rolling over in bed, stretching the sleep from her body, getting up to go to the bathroom and then stepping on the scale for its judgemental reply.   Opening the bedroom door to Ginger’s fast marching paws and whipping tail thumping against the wall.  The descent of the stairs and the exhale as she leans into the hug waiting for her.  “How’d you sleep?” George would ask her every morning.  And whatever the reply, George knew it was honest.  And so the day would begin.

There would be no role over today.  There would be no grabbing the robe or thumping paws or tail.  Marcy would not come down those stairs today. Or any other day.  Marcy was . . . gone.

The doctors told him that she had a stroke, which led to a coma, which led to the heart attack that took her from him.  

There is no way to prepare for such a thing.  There are no words to describe the pain.  No way to comprehend the weight of that silence.  It's a pain that has no hurt because the expansiveness that opens up inside you, makes the heartache miniscule in comparison. 

The funny thing is George could still hear her role over, he could still hear her moving about up there.  He waited for her to come down those stairs even though he knew she never would.  

The vastness of the quiet humbles him again.  As day turns to night George misses Marcy.  He allows himself two fingers of Powers whiskey some nights.  He knows that if he drank it every night the emptiness of the bottles would only make him feel worse.  So, only now and then does he take a sip.  

Tonight he takes his glass and sits next to the fire and talks to all the kids on a conference call, wishes them a merry Christmas and thinks of her. 

On this holy night, George wishes that the magic of the season could bring Marcy back to him.  And it is those thoughts that let the hurt slip through the vastness of the quiet.  He knows that the tears he cries are the love he feels for her.  She would like that.  Not that he’s crying but that the tears belong to her.  We all want to be somebody's tears.  Marcy was certainly his.

As he drifts off to sleep, George gives himself the gift of memories of Marcy.  A lifetime of happiness he wouldn’t trade.  And he wouldn’t forego it even now, knowing the pain it now brings. 

 The memories help.  

Memories bring her back.  

Bring back her laugh, her eyes, her touch and her love.  

Merry Christmas Marcy.  Thanks for the gift of your love.