Silent Track

I started a notebook at 3am on April 5, 2023 when the woman called about Edmond’s status as an organ and tissue donor. Writing the important parts down, I noted her name, number, and organization. It helped me track in real time what was happening. I am still using this notebook that keeps names, numbers, dates of conversations, account numbers, and my action items and due dates. It is imperfect, but it is a recording of my activities, proof I am still here and that this horrible thing happened. It is my ship's log in this vast sea of grief. 

Somedays, I know I ask the same question twice or repeat myself with others. There are times I have to call and request the same information I probably heard and wrote down three or four weeks ago. I do not hear all the details the first or second time. I have to go back to my notes a lot, and even the words on the page seem to be in another language at times. There is not as much room to store new information or to take it in.

My mind is consumed in the wide river of sorrow that is filled to the brim. The margins are thin and the river banks soaked. There is not much room for the rest when the waters crest, like yesterday when it all spilled over. 

The morning had gone on longer than planned, and I did not have the reserves. It was not anyone’s fault, and normally—when Edmond was not dead—it would have been no big deal at all to be in public spaces and waiting rooms. But, he is dead and I used up my limited capacity all at once, at the beginning of my day, and before eleven o’clock in the morning.

The anxiety and panic set in when I finally made it home, and it would not stop. Sobbing and shaking, my extremities began to tingle. 

Panic serves us when our survival is as stake. If we are in danger of becoming prey to a predator, our blood vessels constrict causing our heart rate and blood pressure to increase driving our survival response. We may face the danger and fight, or take flight and flee the threat. Sometimes, when neither fight or flight are a viable options, our body freezes, and we are unable to take action in a moment of crisis. A fourth and less discussed response is the fawn reaction, the attempt to please someone to avoid conflict.  

My survival has been threatened. Life as I knew it with Edmond was a zone of physical, emotional, and psychological safety. My sense of safety, companionship, and partnership in the world has been disrupted. A plane of existence where he is not shocks my system in unpatterned intervals daily. 

Yesterday, the terror of life without my person took over my marginal ability to function. Anger surfaced, and I fought back against nothingness. I screamed what I always scream when I am home alone these days, “Why aren’t you here?” 

My distress was met with utter silence. 

The silence is too much. If he were here, we would have had a good debate about it. He would have given me a logical explanation. I would have nodded and agreed, at least in part. I would have launched into another version of the truth from some metaphysical perspective. We would have had dialogue, maybe even passionate dialogue regarding our complementary positions on the matter. 

Damn it. Pushing up against nothing is unsatisfying. Silent.

I have a playlist I use to help create a comfortable and safe atmosphere for my clients. On this playlist is a silent track. The track is literal silence, and it has an artist: Mike Vargas. The track is four minutes and one second long. When I consider this sound track of silence, it makes me laugh at the irony and brilliance. It is funny to me, and the silence is beautiful and needed in many instances. Like the pause we leave hanging longer than most of us are comfortable doing after someone has said something significant. The receiving and taking-it-in kind of silence is connecting, gentle, and often sweet.

The unmitigated silence in my house after my screams and demands for Edmond’s presence were not that kind of silence.

Still in a state, with a cup of herbal tea in hand too hot to drink, I cautiously made my way a few minutes up the road for my massage appointment with RMaya, my dear friend and healer. My body needed to be on the ground, so I sat on her front step. She sat with me. Still shaking and sobbing, the tingling in my arms and hands was not better. Breathing was a struggle. I waited and my sweet soul-sister waited next to me. It helped. 

Then, the wind came. It breathed for me. It cleared out some of the debris. It played music with the chimes that hang in RMaya’s entryway. The wind is such a friend, such a gift that almost always comes when I wait for it. 

We sat in silence. We also spoke gently and listened to each other. My friend and her compassionate capacity to sit with me in silence is equal to her healing, human touch.

Her ability to heal through her hands is a kind of silence. It fills the space, expands breath, and opens the heart again. There is more room in the room. There is more room in the body. 

It is difficult to describe how noisy my insides can become. The chatter of the pain on a cellular level is deafening at times. So, after a few hours with my friend, the silence within was miraculous, and it still lingers.  

Some of you noticed, and messaged me. I did not post anything yesterday. I appreciate the check-ins, that you care, and that we are sharing in a larger conversation about grief even if it is sometimes indirect or through the ethers. In fact, writing and exchanging with others (even if it is a silent exchange) is a life line for me. Not posting any writing yesterday, I suppose, was my silent track.  

I will continue to write, and share at least 4-5 times a week. If you do not hear from me on any given day, I am listening to the quiet or waiting for it. We can sit in the silent track together.