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 I
understand children are a gift from God, but that doesn’t stop me from
suffering moments when I’d like a refund. Or an exchange. Maybe one
child for two cats and a gerbil. Or a rabbit. Rabbits would be good.
They’re quiet. They don’t eat much, and they let you hold them on your
lap without squirming away.
And they don’t walk like
elephants. Only elephants—and my children—walk like elephants. A law of
physics applies here: the smaller the child, the louder the footsteps.
A sixty-pound nine-year-old running through the living room has the
ability to make our best china rattle like a 7.1 earthquake with
aftershocks inevitable. Inversely, a 120-pound sixteen-year-old can
move from the front door to her bedroom so silently I raise my head
like a doe in the forest, sure something has just passed close but
unsure of its intent.
My children are destined for the
theater. “Please pass the mashed potatoes” is delivered in a voice
heard by the back row of any auditorium. The discussion that follows
regarding whose turn it is to clear the dishes is worthy of a Laurel
and Hardy routine (and we even have our own Laurel).
I love my three kids dearly. Yet
sometimes I yearn for “a time to be silent.”
One weekend I got my wish—though
I had to get sick to do it.
We were scheduled to drive to
our hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska, to go to a Cornhusker football game.
But when I woke up Saturday morning, the glands in my neck made me
resemble a chipmunk stocking up for winter. Not wanting to ruin
everyone’s fun I sent my family north, checked with a doctor, got a
prescription, and settled into our empty house.
Our silent, empty house.
No elephant footfalls. No “But
Mom, he did it first!” No slammed doors, Scooby Doo, or the wails of
loud music.
Just the ticking of the clock in
the entry. The hmmm of the refrigerator. The whoosh of the furnace
making me feel cozy warm as I snuggled beneath an afghan on the couch.
“This is the life,” I told the
air. “I can do what I want, when I want. I can eat foods that have no
nutritional value. I can watch old movies on TV with no one moaning
about the lack of special effects. I can read. I can take a nap. I can
take a bath with no interruptions.”
And
self-serving hedonist that I am, I did all of those things, wallowing
in the solitude with as much ecstasy as Scrooge McDuck swimming in his
vault of gold coins.
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But
after my dinner of mint
chocolate chip ice cream and Diet Coke,
after watching "An Affair to Remember," after
crying
over Father Ralph de Bricassart’s death in The Thorn Birds,
and after a bath from which I emerged a prune, I took another listen to
the silence I’d wrapped around myself, and found it wanting.
I missed Emily’s humming as she
made a batch of chocolate drop cookies along with a mess in the
kitchen. I missed the rumble as Carson hurtled down the stairs. I
missed the sound of Laurel reading aloud to her invisible class as she
played school. And our king-sized bed seemed empty without its king.
With the noises of night closing
in around me, I imagined a life without the sounds of my children.
Their gentle snores assuring me they’re safe and sound in bed, the
harmony of their voices saying grace before a meal. I imagined never
hearing the title “Mom” whether it was tagged on a request for a ride
to school or on the thank-you after giving the ride.
As I tried to get to sleep, I
found the silence heavy—the silence that could have been
if we hadn’t been blessed with three children. I
turned on the television for company and fell asleep to the canned
sounds of TV people going through the process of living.
When my family returned the next
day, bursting in with thudding feet, overlapping voices, and gusts of
fall air, I was ready for them. Renewed. Patient again—at least for a
little while.
In the stillness of my weekend I
found that silence is indeed golden. For it reminded me of something
very important.
My children are more precious
than gold.
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