Nancy Moser

Nancy Moser is the award-winning author of twenty inspirational novels. Her genres include contemporary stories including John 3:16 and Time Lottery, and historical novels of real women-of-history including Just Jane (Jane Austen) and Washington's Lady (Martha Washington). Nancy and her husband Mark live in the Midwest. She’s earned a degree in architecture, traveled extensively in Europe, and has performed in numerous theaters, symphonies, and choirs. She gives Sister Circle Seminars around the country, helping women identify their gifts as they celebrate their sisterhood. She is a fan of anything antique—humans included. Find out more at www.nancymoser.com and www.sistercircles.com.

The Golden Silence

Behold, children are a gift of the Lord.
Psalm 127:3

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.

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.




Nancy Moser