The Sound of Silence

I share things share my thoughts, not to seek pity, because I know others have the same feelings.

As the years have passed, my house has gotten less noisy. My wife Cindy Morrison Beck died and our children have married and started their own lives. When my last child married, she couldn’t take Willow her cat. Willow and I were left to continue our lives together, sharing a large two-storied house. Most times Willow was less noisy than me, her meow almost non-existent unless I stepped on her tail. She made more noise when chasing a mouse; most times she would play with the mouse chasing it. I had to get out of bed and kill the mouse with a shoe, giving it a burial at sea by flushing it down the toilet.

As the house grew quieter, I’d often turn on the television for company. The boob tube taught me tricks to survive in cold Alaska winters, how to make a delicious meal form an odd assortment of food, and how to renovate an old house if I had the tools and manpower. Ministers with Bible teaching and sermons also filled my quiet times.

Recently Willow passed away. She rapidly deteriorated, refusing to eat. I buried her lifeless body beneath the Willows at the back of my property. Her soft meows have now been stilled. My house seems even emptier. More and more I am tempted to leave the television’s remote in the off position, only my puttering breaks the stillness. There are times late in the evenings when vehicles no longer whizz past my front door and crickets no longer serenade me, their chirping songs become stilled. If I don’t have a fan running or if the humming of the refrigerator is stilled, the ensuing silence will fill my ears and I will hear silence. That may seem an odd thing to say, but my ears fill the void with a soft ringing sound. The universe hates a void and will do something to fill it. Right now, even with the low hum of the ceiling fan over my head, I can hear a faint ringing. It’s a barely heard sound. This quietness is often a spur for me to write or at times a detriment when it intrudes on what I’m trying to say.

There are times I long for the sound of my many cousins that filled my Grandparents Ray and Rebecca Miner’s house and times when my children lived at home with visiting friends. But alas, those times are no more and I’ve become accustomed to the quiet and only enjoying brief interludes into my solitude.