The call came during the middle of the day and not during the crazy hours of early morning or the sometimes ominous of late night. I heard them say two words, “it is over” and then there was silence. The absence of all sounds including breathing added a surreal quality that made the moment feel even harder than one would expect.
One single moment that should have come and gone without notice stretched into eternity and then I heard “what should I do?” The insouciant and sometimes juvenile side wanted to make a crack about how that could be a major improvement for one’s sex life or that alternatively it could be very bad for one’s sex life. I could hear the words in my mind and knew exactly how I wanted to deliver them. “Be glad because even if it is bad it is not a mortal blow,” came to mind followed by a series of other smart ass remarks all of which proved that my sometimes dark and twisted sense of humor was intact.
Just thinking about the word intact reminded me of the crazy and unhinged lunatics who sometimes show up on the blog and tell me that circumcision is wrong. Oftentimes the discussion is with someone who is female and I find myself shaking my head as they try to explain how painful it is and how the memories linger. It is often followed by my making mention that I have fathered children and that the only times I haven’t enjoyed sexual encounter is as a result of encountering teeth, bad breath or bad connections. We’ll leave it at as this has already wandered into the land of TMI.
During that interminably long silence while my mind was wandering and racing around from place to place I tried to focus on the positives. But there are conversations where you don’t engage in any sort of spin or try to provide pleasant platitudes. You don’t do it because sometimes the best answer is silence or a simple, “I am sorry.” Mourning the death of a person or a relationship isn’t wrong or bad. There is a grieving process to go through that is supposed to help those in pain heal, or so they tell me.
I know a few people who haven’t. I know a few people who are broken and seem unable and or unwilling to climb out of the graves that they have dug for themselves. I remember trying to look away at a funeral as a husband wailed and beat the ground because of the loss of his wife. That type of heartbreak isn’t supposed to be shared with those outside of the circle, but sometimes profound sadness can do that to a person.
And then my voice broke the silence and I said, “I am sorry, what can I do.” Â And to that I heard, “Nothing, you can’t do anything.” So I sat on the couch in silence, holding the phone to my ear while I tried to come up with something more to say. Except this time there were no snappy comebacks or one liners in my head. All I had was that blanket of silence that covered my mouth and left words unspoken upon my lips.
