Hush

There is something so comfortable about sitting in the silence with my father. Really, I shouldn't call it silence because our house is always filled with songs from whatever album he picked out the night before, but background music has become so familiar in my home that it often blends into silence, so normal that I take it for granted.

Unlike my mother, my dad waits until he is talked to. He does not ask questions or force conversation. That is not to say that he doesn't care or is reserved, because he does care very much and is fairly outgoing. Rather, my father treats words as if they are limited, as if each word sacrifices his ability to latter express an unmade thought. I admire his ability to filter his superfluous or silly thoughts and instead speak only thoughts that will introduce something new

My father's silence is a fresh break from the noise of friendships and the nag of my mother. Not that I don't love both of those groups, but shared silence is a nice reminder that some people love you not for your thoughts, or your humor, or your willingness to listen, but for you. In my fathers silence I hear how he feels about me.

I like to guess what my quite father is thinking, using his music choice as a guide. Tonight, we are listening to The Smashing Pumpkins and my father misses his wife and has too much work to do and needs to fix the washing machine and is worried about his son and probably forgot to get his flu shot again. (Smashing Pumpkins was a perfect choice). But we will never address those things or anything vocally. Instead, we will share this silence and know that, as loud as life may seem, it can all easily become background music.

So, sitting here quietly in the company of my father, I know his thoughts are far off of me. But mine, they are screaming to tell him -screaming to break the silence - that this quite is perfect.

Because soon enough we will get used to the situations we are with and they too will become obsolete, familiarly unnoticed. Maybe I will one day take this silence for granted, but for now,










Hush.