Listen

Listen

Listen.  What do you hear?  

I can tell you what I used to hear around this time last year.  The phone blaring in my ear.  My toddler Stella's feet echoing as she ran around in green froggy rain boots--- probably not listening to me, probably pulling all kinds of things out of her toy box or the bathroom cabinets.  The TV was probably on CP24 news so we could keep abreast of road closures, weather, top news stories, etc.  Aimee and I would be talking about all the things we had to get done on the short weekend…who was going to do the laundry, grocery shopping, empty the dishwasher, how I would fit study time in, what play date we had planned to help fill Stella's day and make it a little less chaotic by keeping her busy.  There would be the sounds of dishes clanging as we piled them in the sink, Stella demanding more butter on whatever it was she was eating, the dog barking every time someone walked past the house. It was a whirlwind of dates on the calendar, rushing around in a fruitless balancing act of home, work, school, family, friends.

Listen.  What do you hear?

I hear the TV droning on in the background but no one is watching it.  I hear Stella's steady breathing as she is tucked under my left arm on the couch, a sprinkling of sweat on her nose where I always thought the freckles would come when she got older.  I hear an army of birds chirping in the tree outside.  A car door slamming.  Aimee is quietly singing something to Sam as she wanders around the house, moving piles of unopened bills from one side of the room to the other.

Listen.  What do you hear?

I can tell you what I don't hear.  I don't hear the soft smack of of bare feet running on the wood floors.  I don't hear the crashing of toys being picked up and moved around in the toy box.  I don't hear the phone ringing as I try to organize multiple play dates.  I don't hear Aimee and I breathlessly trying to catch each other up on our days, what needs to be done, our plans for the next several days.  Aimee and I spend a lot of time in silence  now, adrift in our own thoughts and at a complete loss as to what to say to one another.  We express our feelings through tears, gentle pats on the knee, hugs as we pass each other in the kitchen.  Laughter and smiles too, on the many occasions we are able to appreciate the everyday wonderment of our lives, and our amazing children.  But a lot of the time we just sit quietly together.

This week, despite a good week for Stella in which she enjoyed incredible activities like horseback riding, swimming, visits, feeding birds, a trip to the farm and music therapy, there has been one thing missing.  Her voice. Even though Stella's speech had been declining for some time now, it seems that even the most basic words…"yes"…"no"…"more", and worst of all, "mama" and "mommy"are now gone.  Of all the things that have been so cruelly taken from Stella, for me this has been the hardest to deal with.  It is heartbreaking to watch her mouth move, knowing her brain has the exact right words she wants to say, but her tongue lolls uselessly back and forth and the only sounds that come out are high pitched animal-like whines.  It's awful.  There is no other way to describe or sugar-coat it.  I imagine it akin to being buried alive, where your brain is working perfectly but you are trapped and unable to move or tell anyone where you are.  Aimee and I can each only stand by, watching her struggle to speak for short periods of time, then we have to change who is sitting with her because it quickly becomes unbearable.  We try our best to distract her, to make her laugh, to guess what she might want.  But it makes your chest ache with how hard it is to listen to the silence where her chit-chat used to be.  It makes your eyes burn with unshed tears when you see Sam sitting and happily babbling while his sister stares at us, desperately trying to communicate with her eyes and facial expressions.  I hate this part.  It hurts. 

Now Aimee and I often fill the silence by trying to remember all the things Stella used to say to us.  Her first word was "dog", and she would point to Lucy and say "dawd" then scream with laughter.    She called dandelions "candy-lions", and often referred to Aimee as "other Mommy".  She called the two parks by our house "Sandwich" (real name: Aldwych), and "Holy Cow" (real name Holy Cross).  Her grey cat doll was "Fluff-ellie", her corduroy one was "Pink Kitty", and one of her favourites she referred to as "Little Arin", after her friend Arin.  She named her first talking dolly "Rocco" and her second "Cinderella".  She knew all the lyrics to the Golden Girls theme song as well as all the characters names, and called the show "Thank-you for being a friend".  She used to wake us up every morning, 7 days a week, at 5:15am by standing up in her crib and shouting "Mamaaaaaa, where are you????  Mamaaaaaa I'm awaaaaaake!".  For breakfast she asked for "crunchy cereal".  When she was put into bed and wasn't ready to go to sleep, she would cry and call out the names of every single person she knew tearfully, including her friends and their parents begging someone---anyone to come and get her.  She thought Halle Barry  on TVwas our friend Jean, and Sharon Osbourne was her Tutu.  When we visited Riverdale Farm, she plugged her nose and said, "Piggies, you stink!  You should pee in the potty!" and she would say when she saw the chickens coming, "uh-oh, now Mommy is going to freak out" because she thoroughly enjoyed Aimee's reaction of jumping on benches and trying desperately to shoo the chickens away from her ankles.  If she didn't like someone, she would simply point her finger at them, narrow her eyes and say loudly "I don't like you!".  When she got in trouble, if we asked her why she did something she would blink her eyelashes a few times, spread her arms wide open and say, smiling, "Because...because...because I JUST love you!!!".  She was vivacious, talkative, spirited, full of life.  She is still all these things, but now Aimee and I fill in what we think her thoughts and words are for her.  Just like with a baby, we will say to her, "Stella say thank-you", but then knowing she can't, we continue by saying on her behalf in the first person, "thank-you Christina for coming to play with me today".  I wonder if she gets annoyed when we do that.  Sometimes when people come in I can see her narrowing her eyes and moving her hands back and forth.  I know if she had a voice she would be telling our visitors to "go away!".  But because she can't say it, Aimee and I will patronizingly say, "Yeah Stella, are you saying hi to Kayla?  Hi Kayla!  Thank-you for coming to see me!" in order to protect the visitors' feelings.  Stella sometimes glares at me when I do that to her.  And I feel badly, knowing that her silence must be stifling for her and what she really wants me to say is, "Stella doesn't want you here.  Get out". 

I am upset that she has been cruelly quieted by this tumour.  I wonder how long Aimee and I will last suffering in this silence with her.  Today I was thinking about how, despite how honest Aimee and I have tried to be with everyone, despite the blog, confiding in friends and family, crying loudly and often, despite all that--- most of our experiences remain unsayable.  We wrestle everyday to express thoughts and emotions that are, ultimately, indescribable.  Our life experience over the last 10 months is largely beyond words, and so exists in a type of paradox balancing emptiness and wholeness, the spoken and the unspoken.

Listen.  What do you hear?

I am now listening to music as I finish typing this entry.  I am listening to my newly discovered favourite band, "The Stellas" (of course!).  They have a song called In This House, which is almost too close for comfort.  But it starts:

All is quiet

In our humble home.

Lonely,

But I'm not alone

Cuz I can hear your laugh in every room…

(You can listen to the song here, if you want: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CEAOY3ZIKQ)

And I realize that even though I miss Stella's voice, and cry whenever I conceive that I may never hear her say "Mama" to me again, we still have the sound of Stella's laugh echoing off our walls and our hearts.  She can't talk, she can't cry tears--- but she still laughs. Pretty amazing. 

This reminded me that if you listen to a really good piece of music, you soon realize that the notes are part of the song, but the pauses and silences between the notes are just as important to the artistry of the piece.  The vibrations, the pitch, the tone, the duration of breaths taken all combine to create the full experience of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.  The music wouldn't be music without the silences in-between notes. 

Listen.  What do you hear?

I hear my heart, breaking and healing with every beat.  I hear all the memories of the last three years with Stella competing for airtime in my mind.  I hear Stella breathing steadily, and in the half-second of silence between the inhale and exhale, I hear the word "listen".

These pictures from the last week have no words, but I bet you can understand them perfectly anyhow: