The sound of my silence

When my best friend Yvette died, my world collapsed. (She was closer than a friend, she was family.) I remember exactly where I was when her father told me over the phone. I was driving and I was at the corner of Avenida Mazatlan and Eisenhower Ave in La Quinta. I had been annoyed at her all morning for not answering my phone calls and I was on my way to her work to bitch at her for it. Her dad had this very calm tone to his voice when I called her house that morning and asked for her. He said, "No, Yvette's not here...she's been in a car accident." Pause. "She's not with us anymore." I thought: well, where is she? The thought that she was dead was a thought that my brain couldn't grasp. I thought: well, is she at the hospital? I asked him, "Where is she?? Tell me where she is??" He, again very calmly, said, "She's at the morgue; she didn't make it." Just like that. He said it JUST. LIKE. THAT.

All at once, my mind began to shut down. Everything began to get foggy...I couldn't focus on the road. I couldn't get my eyes to see anything in front of me. I had been driving on a 50 MPH road,(anyone who knows me knows that the posted speed limit is just a minimum suggestion to me). I got off the phone and called Ted, my ex husband, and told him what had happened. He immediately told me to go back home. He knew I was going to be in no condition to drive; he was right. I got home, walked in the door and fell to the floor in the foyer. The realization began to eek in. I felt a great heaviness, pressure on my heart, on my whole body. That was my initial feeling. Although, soon afterwards I completely broke down; body, heart, soul...it all broke down. I've written a lot about it in my private journals, in a lot more detail, but for the purposes of this posting, this will suffice.

The reason I was thinking about her death is this: for a long time afterwards, I couldn't stand the sound of silence. I say this because silence definitely has a sound (and not just because Paul Simon said so). Usually, I find, that the sound of the silence around oneself is the sound of what's inside of you. After the death of someone so close to me, all that seemed to be inside of me was broken--heartbroken, soul-broken, spirit-broken. I was shattered. So, therefore, when I was surrounded by silence, it was not good. It felt awful...it was scary. It was actually scary to be surrounded by silence, to be alone. That was a foreign feeling for me. I used to love to be alone, to be quiet. At this point in my life, though, I couldn't handle it. I suppose that the reason I'm thinking about this, not just tonight, but lately is because I'm beginning to be myself again in this way. I'm, once again, relishing the sound of the silence around me. I'm taking deep pleasure in sitting quietly and sinking into the calm. I feel so peaceful in it. I feel like wrapping it around me like my favorite cashmere throw and lying within its serenity. This is also one of the reasons that I begin my meditation lessons. I'm ready to delve into myself. I'm on a spiritual quest. I know this sounds cliche and even that is something that I've come to terms with. Cliches are truths. Overused? Yes; but held in truth, none the less. I'm ready to face the things that make me who I am. To change the things that don't work; to strengthen those qualities that do work, that are good.

So, with the 4-year anniversary of her death quickly approaching, I know Yvette would be happy with where I am today. She would be happy that even though her death devastated me, I used it to change the things in my life that needed changing. I faced the things that had previously scared me and thought I could never do; the things that she and I talked about. All she ever wanted for me is to be happy; whatever that meant. And I am.