The Silence After

This past Saturday, minutes before my Uncle Jerry’s memorial service began, one of my closest friends texted me to tell me her father had suddenly passed away in his sleep the night before. “I hate giving this to you via text, but I don’t have the capacity to talk right now. And on a hard day for you, Robin.” 

There we were, standing on the edge of one grief while another arrived. And ever since, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her. 

Two years ago, when my Aunt Janice passed away, I remember looking around at my peers and feeling this strange loneliness. Not because people weren’t kind, but because it felt like so few understood what it felt like to lose someone who had become part of the structure of your world. There are some griefs that divide your life into a before and after, and until you’ve crossed into that territory yourself, it can be hard to explain the silence they leave behind. 

I remember looking at my husband with both envy and sorrow. Envy because he still had both his parents. Sorrow because one day, inevitably, he would understand too. 

Since then, loss has changed the way I love people.

When my husband’s Aunt Karen passed in December, I cleaned and helped where I could. When Jerry got sick and eventually passed, I tried to become a steady thing for my Aunt Carol to lean against. And now, with my friend losing her dad, I find myself wanting to hold space for her in the way I wish someone could have held space for me back then. Not to fix it. You cannot fix grief. But to remind someone they are not alone while the world suddenly feels unfamiliar. 

My friend sent me a video this week. Her dad had recently become an ordained deacon in the Episcopal church, and it was a sermon he was supposed to give the morning after he passed away. In it, he spoke about fear, about trusting the path God had for us, about not being afraid because the path is still there after doubt, after loss…

I found myself so grateful that she has those words now. Because, if I’m honest, the hardest part of death for me has always been the silence afterwards. I know Janice loved me. I know Jerry loved me. I know they knew I loved them too. But there is a part of me that still aches over not getting to say goodbye. Over not getting those final words that settle into your chest and help steady the storm a little. 

I wish they could have told me they loved me one more time. 

I wish they could have told me that they were proud of me. 

I wish they could have told me I was going to be okay. 

I wish they could have told me that they weren’t really that far away. 

Yesterday was Janice’s birthday. She was always quiet about birthdays. Never asked for much attention. But I always made sure to remember. The year before she passed, the last birthday she had on Earth, I asked her if she would adopt me. 

We never finalized it. But I hope she knew anyway. 

I hope she knew that somewhere along the way she stopped feeling like “just” my aunt and became something far more sacred to me. A safe place. A mother in all the ways that mattered. 

Grief has taught me many things, but one of the biggest is this…love does not end cleanly. It lingers in recipes and rituals. In the way we show up for hurting people. In the way we remember birthdays. In the instincts we carry forward from those who loved us well. 

Sometimes I think that is what people really leave behind. Not only memories, but ways of loving. 

And maybe that is how they stay close. Not in grand signs or dramatic moments. But in the quiet continuation of who they taught us to be.