Weekly Prompt

Sometimes silence is the simplest answer.

My husband’s mother passed away this weekend. She was 81 years old and had been living in a memory care facility since a fall last March, which left her with a broken hip. Coupled with the respiratory issues she had, the inability to walk and remember things, a care facility was a necessity. Prior to that, she had been living alone, in the same home she brought my husband home to, fifty four years ago. My husband’s father died two years ago, which left Evelyn (my mother-in-law and I share the same name) to find a way to go about the world, without the sun it had revolved around. Without Jack, we knew it would be immensely difficult for her. Nobody left to garden with, to make dinner for and walk around the neighborhood with, to help digest the meal. Who would blame her for wanting to move on from this life and be surrounded once again by the arms of her beloved, and the arms of God.

We got the news while traveling home from South Carolina, so arrived home with less enthusiasm and more solemnity. My husband unpacked his bag and dawdled around the house, the way a person does when their heart has things to say to them they may not want to hear. We ate some dinner, I went to my office to catch up on some annoying threads left fraying while I was out of town and Scarlett sat down at the piano; something she does regularly in the evenings. The sound of peaceful piano music filling our home is something I will miss nearly as much as her physical presence when she moves into the next chapter of her life. When I emerged from my office, I found Casey laying on the couch, gentle tears flowing down his cheeks.