Punctures of Peace

Nine months. The shouts of joy began. Talking. Laughing. Thanking. Praising. Singing.

Six weeks. The whispers of plea began. Crying. Whimpering. Praying. Begging. Hoping.

One night. And my world went silent.

I've remembered, painted, and told the story so many times. The nine months of my sister's fetal life. The six weeks of her wispy life as she hung on by a thread--or rather, thick cords attached to ugly, blinking meters. The one night when it felt like my heart had broken beyond repair.

And then silence.

I can attest to the fact that impenetrable quiet is one of the most agonizing experiences ever. Especially when it's right after a period of screams.

Even when I cried, it was all silent. Because I couldn't cry. Crying was wrong. Crying was weak. Crying wasn't strong, and the entire world needed me to be strong. But how I could be strong for all of them when I was quickly falling apart inside?

Death is silence. A horrifically quiet lull where a thriving, loud life used to be. Nothing can make me appreciate noise as much as death does.

Katherine's death was like a blanket of nothingness. Quiet. Complete and total lack of sound. Emotionally, mentally, physically, and worst of all, spiritually.

Or so I thought.

Because throughout that heartwrenching, tear-freezing silence, God was yelling out to me.

It began in little pricks. Like tiny stars in a vast, velvety black night sky. Glowing points of simple joy and happiness that could make my day. Perhaps give me one night that I didn't spend crying myself to sleep. Or maybe, a day when neither parent seemed overriden with exhaustion and stress. In the end, all the pricks seemed to join together until they broke the layer of nothingness and joined together to produce one huge burst of light.

But they started out as punctures. Punctures of peace.

I cried almost every night. I cried most days, too, when I was by myself. My prayers had turned from "Thank you, God, for a little sister" to "Why, why, why did you have to take my little sister away from me?!" I was only eight. I could not comprehend why such a helpless, beautiful child--the one thing I had wanted my entire life--had to die and leave me so alone. But ignorance was no excuse for my lack of faithful understanding.

Perhaps it was the miracle that changed everything around. The burst of light that happened less than a year later. But would I have even gotten there without the punctures of peace? Likely not. Those pinpricks of light got me through the steady days. The rough weeks. The months of confusion, pain, and horrible, unshifting silence. Things as simple as a smile from my mom, a hug from my dad, or a game with my brother. Those were the little whispers of joy that woke me up from quiet apathy.

Isn't it interesting? So often, it's the small things that make the biggest impact. In such silence, something as soft and quiet as a whisper can make a world of difference. It only takes a little bit to snap us out of nothingness.

So often, I think it's easy for us to neglect breaking the silence because we don't think we can do it loudly enough. We're too small, too insignificant, and too quite to make a difference, so we seal our mouths with the red tape of death and let it all continue. But in reality, peeling the tape back just a little bit could be loud enough to bring someone out of their prision of quietness.

The burst did make a difference, though. There is no shame in going beyond the pinpricks and shouting.

Two months. The silence continued. Silent tears. Drawn limbs. Closed mouths. Closed eyes.

One day. The nervous excitement began. Whispers of hope. Risky possibilities of shouts. Snippets of praises.

Five years. The shouts of joy began again. Talking. Laughing. Thanking. Praising. Singing.

And this time, it didn't die. Subdued at times, perhaps, but nothing could kill the four foot tall, obnoxiously loud, happy person of song, praise, prayer, and everlasting thanksgiving.

Hudson Bakke. My cry of peace.

Don't be afraid to let it out. Whether all you have to offer is a whisper, or you can throw out a ringing shout: you just might be someone's puncture of peace that keeps them moving through a horribly velvet sky of silence.