What's Left

I just returned from taking my son back to college after his Christmas break. I walked in the door, climbed the stairs, and stepped into a cloud of sad silence. I breathed it in, and sobbed.

I thought: how much more is it like this for those who return home from unwanted good-byes, from sendings-off like funerals that are devoid of hope of return? How much heavier is the silence weighted with sadness? How much more difficult is it to breathe?

I don't pretend to know grief, but I am not a stranger to it, either. None of us are, I guess. I imagine that we all come to know grief in ways large or small, but I believe that each of us knows grief only in our most personal ways, in the ways we know family, or friends, or lovers. Yet perhaps precisely because of the very personal quality of our knowledge of grief, we have only just made our acquaintance with it. There is always that much more to find out, to be surprised by.

And so it is, I am surprised to find that something remains: my son contributed his presence to my/our home briefly this vacation; yet when he goes, he has left enough to make me aware that he'd been here, and that he has left.

And now I adjust to life by myself again... I get to fill the quiet solely in my own ways.

I miss him...