Someone once said to me that ‘silence makes room for whatever needs to happen.’ I didn’t quite understand what that really meant until I experienced it myself through spending time with my Dad at his end of life.
I grew up not being very comfortable with silence as that usually meant I was alone when I didn’t want to be, or worse, in trouble for doing something wrong. We were never yelled at as kids if we got into trouble. Instead, we were given ‘the silent treatment’ along with some time out in our rooms to think about what we had done. I remember wishing at times that my Dad would just yell at me and be done with it but in hindsight, the silence was probably more effective. As much as I had learned the awkwardness and discomfort of silence in those early years from my Dad, he also taught me in later life how important silence can be and that it is an integral part of communicating.
Fast forward forty years and I spent many days by my Dad’s bedside when he was dying. The visits weren’t easy, as I always felt that I needed to find things to talk about and do. I felt I needed to distract him by keeping busy, and I thought that was the best way to make my presence known and felt by him. I think I was also at some level trying to avoid and suppress my own sadness about what was happening. Dad would respond to some of those things and enjoy them briefly, but he also found it very tiring.
Sometimes, when I thought Dad was sleeping, I learned to sit quietly beside him without the pressure of words. By providing that silence, I suddenly started to notice that Dad would talk more and sometimes he would say very profound things about his thoughts and feelings about his life. This gave me a new window into learning things I didn’t know about him before, which I will always cherish. By being quieter myself, I literally gave him more space to initiate contact and say the things he needed to say before he died. It was a comfort to him to feel me beside him, sometimes holding hands, with no need to talk. The connection felt much deeper and more real. My brother would also visit, and he was similarly quite loud and busy. He would sometimes ask why our father seemed to talk to me more, so I encouraged him to slow down, listen and watch more, without filling the space with television, music and random chat. He struggled with this, as so many do. Learning the language of silence isn’t easy and takes time.
I would have missed out on so much if I hadn’t preserved or honoured the silence.
Consultant Trainer, MCM