Sitting in Silence
By: Madison Wescott
Tags: Love, Silence, Loss, Dispair

The cemetery was always cold. I could go there in the middle of the day with the warm golden rays of the sun hitting my face, but the slightest breeze would make me feel the need to grab a blanket from my car. However, it was not a physical cold that I needed warmth to overcome. The cold was more of a mental state in which I was trapped. and I could not seem to escape the prison that was in my own head. The cold made me feel so alone, but talking about it was not an option, for it would make me seem weak. As I would sit on the grass and look up to the deep blue abyss, I would think to myself, “why is it so cold?” I would simply be answered by a bird chirping or maybe even another gust of the cold autumn wind. I did not mind the silence though, as it was calming. Sitting out on that crisp grass -sitting so long I undoubtedly left my impression in it- I felt at peace, as though nothing in this world could harm me more than life already had. For a while, I would sit in the incorruptible air and just breathe. As my chest would collapse from the lack of air, my worries would go with it.

After a while of sitting in the cold silence, it would then be time for me to do what I had come to do. I would sit up next to the little brown spot on the grass and talk. I usually started with “Hey Grandpa, how was your week?” I waited for a response, but I was met with silence. I knew he would come, but I needed to give him time. Within a few minutes of sitting in silence, the little, crimson insect would emerge from the paint soaked sky and land on my knee. At first I would be careful not to disturb it with my breath as it may use those gorgeous crimson wings to fly away, but after a while, I would speak softly to my grandpa. We would talk about how I had received Rotary Student of the month for September, and how I had to pay for new tires on my car for the first time. I could imagine hearing the insect speak with grandpa’s soft raspy voice, asking me if I had a tire pressure gauge in my car, which I answered with a “yes” because grandma had given me a little grey one a few weeks prior. Talking to this little insect and to the little white box in the ground made me feel like a crazy person most of the time. This crazy feeling would make me remember how cold it was to feel alone, trapped by the emotions in my head.

The cold was a numbness that I could not figure out how to overcome. I could feel a tear trickle down my cheek as I pictured myself walking across that stage at graduation. Then the vision would stop as I looked at the little brown spot on the grass, and I would remember that my grandpa would not be in attendance. Graduation is something that I have been looking forward to, and I wanted to be able to share that moment with him. I think that he would be proud, and I think that if I could just have one last conversation with him maybe the cold would go away, maybe I could finally feel something. Anxiously I sat there with the warm sun hitting my face, and I knew that talking to my little butterfly should make me feel warm, as if someone were sitting there with me. That warm feeling never came to sweep away the cold. The cold was always there, and I began to wonder if maybe I was actually alone. I knew deep down that I was not, but I still sat in the silence overcome by the cold. Unlike my family who loved to talk, almost as if the emotions would spill from their mouths like water from a fire hydrant, I was different. For me, I would much rather be swept up by the silence because in my eyes emotions were a vulnerability: A vulnerability I knew I was exposing more and more since I had lost my grandpa, so I stayed where I would be safe, engulfed by the silence. It wasn’t until I looked up at the monstrosity of a tree that lurked over the neighboring plots that I realized something.

The tree stood so galiently over the grey cemetery as if maybe it had been placed there to protect the people. I could tell that the tree, a lot like me, had been through a lot but was still able to stand tall. The trunk looked like it had been hit a few too many times by the sharp blades of the mower, no matter it still towered over the plots. However, the emerald leaves were beginning to look very heavy hanging from the branches. The rustling of its branches dared to disturb the deafening silence that I was sitting in, almost like the tree had something to tell me, and it was just waiting for me to listen. The tree began by showing me how the bitter chill of the fall air had begun to take its leaves, and how the cold was much more than a temperature that I could read on my car gauge. The cold was buried deep in what I thought was my warm soul. The leaves were being stripped away and began to expose a very small, frail wooden figure. Upon each visit here the tree would become less and less recognizable until the frost was upon us and there were no leaves left. On my last visit, I worried that much like the tree, I was beginning to lose my leaves and allowing my vulnerability to show, and when my vulnerability was exposed, I too may be trapped in the neverending, piercing cold.

Longing for the warmth, I began to express my emotions not only to the tree but to my mother as well. My fear of being trapped in the cold forever began to vanish when the warm weather of the spring emerged, and I watched as those emerald green leaves began to appear once again, hanging from those obnoxiously loud branches. Even though the tree had once been a frail and small figure in the cold, it persevered and rose once again, taking back its gallant post as a vital asset to the cemetery. The leaves had come back after a long winter, and it was as if they had never left. The tree spoke to me one final time, and I learned that the cold is buried deep in everyone. However, it is how we chose to deal with the cold that truly matters. The tree needed a break from holding all of the leaves, so once a year it allowed itself to drop all of the stress of the leaves and break down. Then, when the time came, and the tree had regained its strength, it would be ready to hold all of the leaves again. The tree had taught me that I could do the same by taking all of my emotions and letting them run free. I could let my emotions spill like water from a fire hydrant, and it would not make me vulnerable or weak. After a while my leaves began to return, and I was starting to feel like myself again.

There are a great many things that I learned from sitting in that cemetery, one of the most important being that the cold should not be feared. Even though I am stricken with grief right now, the tree has taught me that like the cold, my grief will also pass. I will one day be able to reclaim the happiness I felt that I had lost when my grandfather left. The cold would always be there, but I began to accept and appreciate it. There is nothing wrong with wanting the cold to leave, but accepting it is an important part of the challenge. The silence I adored so much started to feel like a burden that I would extinguish on the tree, and I knew that I needed to talk about my cold. I did not have to feel or be alone anymore because I had so many people who loved me from here on Earth and from up above. The cemetery in my eyes became the place where I was able to find myself again, and. I was even starting to appreciate the cold and relish in the noise.