Empty Silences

The rest is silence - Hamlet's last words, in the eponymous play written by Shakespeare, hold many meanings. In death, there is rest and silence...after death, for those left behind there is only silence.

Over the past year, this silence has grown to a deafening crescendo. No more phone calls at odd times of the day, no more conversations as we wait to fall asleep, no more recounting of the day's travails...no more sound. It still amazes me how quickly it became quiet. In just an instant all that was left was silence. We live around the silence, it is a physical presence in our lives now...just like the emptiness.

The void left behind by the loss of the physical being that was Shekhar is palpable. It is in the empty cupboard spaces, in the missing hugs and touches, in the vacant chair at the dinner table, in the driver's seat of the car and our lives. Still we believe that he's around us - alive in the silence and the emptiness - in our dreams, thoughts and words.

Some day the empty silences will become a habit. As humans that is what we do, given long enough we become accustomed to things that are unbearable. Till then, in the quiet emptiness, we will live with and bear the echoes of silence.

***

Let me come to be still in your silence

And let me talk to you with your silence

That is bright as a lamp

Simple, as a ring

You are like the night

With its stillness and constellations

Your silence is that of a star

As remote and candid...

From I like for you to be still by Pablo Neruda