The Silence Was a Choice

This isn't about one moment of silence, but generations of them.

For years, my husband and I lived in a cabin in the woods. This was our home:

It's the kind of place people daydream about when they’re stuck in traffic: deer in the yard, ducks on the lake, and a hammock swaying from the porch.

After years of navigating complicated family dynamics, we thought we had finally earned our 'reward'; we were finally getting back to what life looked like before raising kids and trying to blend our families. We could relax.

So naturally, everything blew right the hell up.  

Before the cabin and that illusion of peace, I’d spent the last stretch of my grandmother’s life back in my home state as her medical proxy, managing her care with my mother. It was a sacred kind of hell: long nights, impossible decisions, and a front-row seat to someone fading into a shell of herself.

Glioblastoma is a devious little thief that stole her words and abilities. But even though she couldn’t speak, she could still sing along to songs she loved.

And somehow, she understood what we were saying to her throughout it all.

I said goodbye to her while there was still someone in there to say it to. But when she passed away, none of us were in the room with her.

We were all in the house, but the one person at her side, the one who knew she was slipping away, said nothing. No call down the hallway, just...silence.