I have been silent, lately. Not so long ago I had so much to say that I almost couldn’t keep up. Then my breath was stolen by the proximity of death. I have been on a journey to the end of my mother’s life. And while on that journey I felt my lips were sealed, and I had nothing at all to say. What a strange thing for a writer – to lose her voice when there is so much to be said. It was, however, my turn to be silent. My turn to listen. I wonder if God closed my mouth so that I could hear better.

My mom’s journey was a textbook end-of-life story. Her body was old and tired, and she stopped eating, hydrated poorly, and couldn’t get out of bed. The doctors at the hospital did what they could, and in the end, it was her decision to enter hospice care. We took her home, and for three weeks we cared for her, celebrated her and listened to her – we bore witness to a life of both joy and suffering. It was hard and wondrous work to keep her comfortable, with a steady parade of caregivers to support us. After the initial shock of entering hospice care and recognizing that she would soon die, my mom began to talk. And talk. And talk. For days on end she told all the old stories, retold all the favourite recipes. She planned her funeral and said all the things she needed to say. She talked until she could talk no more, and then she cried for a while, and then she went to sleep. It was a peaceful and graceful ending.

The silence in the house was deafening when the talking stopped. Not being a particularly demonstrative family, our cries were silent and personal – there was no weeping and wailing although maybe that would have done us good. Instead, there was only the quiet of a house from which a spirit has fled a ravaged body.  I managed to speak a few words at her Celebration of Life– heartfelt and appropriate – but only a drop in the bucket.

I still haven’t cried properly. There have been tears here and there but not the fierce release of real weeping. I’m writing now, but I’m not sure whether the words will flow or drip like a broken faucet. It occurs to me that maybe my time for listening is not over. I need to listen to my own body and retrieve the rhythms that were lost in the messiness of palliative caregiving. I need to listen to the voices of my community which have supported me and loved me through every up and down. I need to listen to the tones of Holy Saturday which urge me to stay and mourn awhile, that resurrection will come, in time, but not today.

 My speech doesn’t have the power to raise the dead. But Jesus does. My grief work so far seems to be about paying attention to the patterns of grace that are superimposed on my trauma. About listening to the promises whispered by the Holy Spirit – that the story is not yet over. In our world resurrection happens slowly – a tantalizing and miraculous unfolding of life that is just barely visible in the darkest hour. This halting speech won’t last forever, there will be words again and songs again but not today.