The house is quiet today. A lazy dog dozes in the corner. A cat stretches and yawns, content her in little patch of sunlight falling across the floor. Sitting alone in the silence, I take this in. I notice the dog hair on the floor in the next room and think I should get the vacuum. I don’t. Instead, I sit and listen for I know that often, silence speaks loudest. 

On Monday morning she called good-by, the door slamming behind her. For the first time, she drove herself to school. Only one more first day of school before this last child too will leave childhood behind, much like the forgotten doll, shoved into the corner of her closet. 

In the silence I remember.  

A box of books arriving from Sonlight Curriculum. Excited kids gathered around while we unpacked the boxes, examining the books and science and art supplies. 

Other days of school. 

Together. Five children and me. Little bodies cuddled up to me on the couch or sprawled across the floor as I read. Reaching the end of that day’s reading and kids begging for just one more chapter. The daughter who, I later learned, would sneak the read-aloud books and read ahead because she just had to know what happened. 

Fresh baked bread in the oven and it’s tantalizing aroma. Science experiments spread over the dining room table. Protests over Latin and why do we really need to learn Latin anyway. Tripping over shoes left in the middle of the hallway. 

Constant talking, laughter and siblings bickering; the music that filled our home in those days. Gone now. Only silence but for the soft snore of the little Border Collie across the room. 

Some days the silence hangs heavy, oppressive. But today, it’s soft and gentle, inviting me to remember. The memories come like a flood. Setting countless tables, braiding hair yet again, folding laundry, peeling another potato. One more bath. Exhaustion at the end of the day. The holy things of life masquerading as the mundane. 

The silence grows loud and insistent. “Remember!” it demands.

 

 

Picking apples together in the fall. Soccer games as the leaves turn gold and red and dance in the autumn sunlight. Sunday afternoons playing the Farm Game. Kids enamored with the soft, yellow baby chicks or a new litter of kittens. Teaching the little ones to pray.  Answering a plethora of questions. Saturday afternoons at Grandma’s pond.

“Alright. I heard you.” I speak into the silence and lose myself in the memories. “But why? Why this insistence on remembering?” 

The answer now soft, barely a whisper, but instinctively I know. 

As the memories flood my mind and fill the room around me, almost tangible in their clarity, thankfulness threatens to overwhelm me and with it a keen awareness of the miraculous that is our lives. 

Thankfulness for the children I’ve been privileged enough to mother, and awe at the miracle that is their very existence. Eternal souls, known and loved before the creation of the earth, entrusted to me. 

Gratefulness for time, for the time we’ve shared, and for those miraculous moments when time stood still. 

Thankfulness for grace, prodigious and vast, covering my multitude of mistakes. Failures that would stand in accusation only to be silenced by the overwhelming miracle that is the essence of grace.

Gratefulness for family and friends and for those experiences that have filled me with hope and joy.  Gratefulness even for those times that have threatened to overwhelm me, that have shaken the very foundations of my faith and finding there a miracle of hope, and life and redemption. 

Remember. Give thanks. Love. Appreciate. Choose joy. Look ahead. Grow. Change. Live! Find the Holy in the Mundane. Search for it if you must. Cherish it! Know that as life changes, and evolves and transitions, the Holy remains. Waiting. Calling. These were the words shouted in the silence.