The Silence

I sit here writing with a heavy heart this morning. There seems to be so much dysfunction going on around me that I don’t know which way to turn. So I sit here this morning listening for God in the silence. There is the hum of the refrigerator, the chirp of the ceiling fan...but yet I hear silence. Not just a silence in my home, but a silence in my spirit. Although my mind is racing with so many thoughts, yet I still hear silence. I begin to wonder if God still knows my voice, but as I wonder, He probably wonders the same. Have I forgotten how to pray, when to pray, when to listen, how to hear His voice? I ask myself these questions, because I’ve neglected to spend time with Him everyday. I’ve neglected to devote a space in my chaos for Him. I’ve neglected to invite Him in!

A mother’s love is a love like no other. It’s a complicated love. It’s a love that can withstand the test of time. But sometimes it seems far in the distance. I used to wonder as a little girl, why my mother stayed on me. She was always on my back about what seemed like everything to me. But she was loving me. She wanted to show me that there was so much more for me. As a teenager, sometimes that love seem so far away. My mother is a woman of very few words. So conversations in the home were at a minimum. I wrote her letters when something was bothering me. When my uncle was diagnosed with AIDS and his health declined right in front of my eyes, I begged my mother through letter to not let me endure this. I couldn’t stand to see him that way. Every evening that I got off of the bus, he was there (at my grandmother’s...where he lived). I wrote a letter asking my mother if I could now ride the bus home. She trusted me! I abused her trust!

I would go out with friends as I became older, and stay out too long. I started experimenting with life and all of its entricases. Our relationship grew farther and farther apart. Once my sister moved out...there became this silence. The hum of the refrigerator, the chirp of the ceiling fans...but still there was a silence in the house. It’s so amazing to me that we are such a loud family naturally, that such silence could exist. Talking on the phone is loud, so you could only imagine a family function. But we love family time. The Hicks family has always loved family time. But when my grandmother passed away, for a while there was another silence. We figured it out eventually, but even in our loud voices, there is a silence. 

That silence has followed me into my adulthood. I have endured heartache, pain, emptiness, and much more. But yet there was still a silence. I’ve had children, married, divorced, experienced life, and married again. But yet there is still a silence. I know right, even after two children; still a silence. I absolutely adore the man that God has sent me. He is my rock, my shoulder to cry on, my best friend. He knows all of my ends and outs, but yet he doesn’t know this silence. He fumbles sometimes trying to figure me out. Trying to understand my sarcasm, my mood swings, but yet He still loves me. 

My children are unique in their own ways. My son is extremely talented and gifted in ways that I could’ve never imagined. My daughter has struggled within herself to find her voice, but still gifted and talented in her own way. I never realized until recently, that I see so much of my own struggles inside of her. I see the pain that I hid for so long in her. I see all of the hurt and resentment in her. 

What is this silence? The silence that has been trapped for years and years and years. The hum of the refrigerator, the chirp of the ceiling fan, and now the roar of the air conditioner...but yet still a silence! For so many years, I hid my feelings. I had no one to talk to about life. I didn’t feel comfortable talking to my mother about certain things that I was feeling. My sister was always doing her own thing. My friends wouldn’t understand...or so I thought. My dad never had time for me. So who would I talk to. I knew God, but I didn’t know how to talk to Him. No one taught me that. My grandmother was my everything, but I couldn’t dare disappoint her with my shenanigans. So I held everything in. I walked around everyday, a ticking bomb ready to explode. And sometimes I did. I exploded on whoever was in my line of fire. If you looked at me the wrong way, or said the wrong thing, tick tick boom! Then I started putting all of my energy into boys and sex. But yet there was still a silence. 

I thought that I had found love. Someone that was going to take care of me, protect me from the silence. But the opposite happened and the silence became louder. Louder? Yes louder! It became so loud that I became more and more consumed with men and sex to try and mask it. Until one day I met my now husband. I thought the silence would go away, but yet it still remains. I still remains, as if it’s following me. It won’t loose its grip. 

What is this silence? The silence of a little girl then teenager growing up in a single parent home. The silence from a little girl standing at the door waiting for daddy to come. The silence of a teenager being told by her father not to come back. The silence of a teenager seeing those she thought would be here forever, die right before her eyes. The silence of a teenager losing her virginity to one that didn’t deserve it. The silence of a teenager trying to fit in. The silence of a teenager falling in love with a grown man. The silence of a teenager that wanted to follow the shadow of her sister. The silence of a teenager that experienced boy hurt and friend hurt. The silence of a teenager getting pregnant. The silence of dealing with baby momma drama. The silence of dealing with someone else’s control issues. The silence of getting pregnant again. The silence of not wanting that baby. The silence of my mother saying abortion is not an option. The silence of sleeping around. The silence of domestic fights. The silence that I wanted to be free. The silence that I knew God, knew how to praise God, but I didn’t really know God. The silence of sleeping with a married man. The silence of having a threesome. The silence of struggling financially in a marriage that wasn’t working. The silence of finding true love and not knowing how to love back. 

The silence! It became louder and louder and louder. Now I deal with the same silence with my daughter. The more I try to talk, the more silent she becomes. I see the resentment of leaving her father in her eyes. I know the hurt of not having him around. I know the hurt of trying to fit in with girls at school. I know the hurt of life. But she doesn’t understand that I know all about it. The silence had become me talking at her and not talking to her. The silence began to overtake me. The silence had become louder than my voice. The silence began projecting the past onto my children. The silence began projecting onto my husband. The hum of the refrigerator, the chirp of the ceiling fan, and now the roar of the air conditioner...but now my silence has met her silence!