WRITE A SHORT PIECE ABOUT A TIME WHEN QUIET CONFLICTED WITH CHAOS

 QUIET in the midst of CHAOS

I’m half asleep but I hear the chaos around me. Two of my kids are in the living room fighting and one is sitting next to me on the bed telling me all about his latest video game adventure. The love of my life is asleep next to me, snoring loudly. My teenager paces the kitchen listening to music and singing along. It’s overall not a bad kind of chaos. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. But the silence that comes only moments later, amidst the chaos, is one I could live without.

 

As I open my eyes and smile at my son, I realize that sleep is over for the day. Grabbing my phone, I do as I do most mornings and click on the facebook icon. As I wait for it to open, I look back at my son and he smiles at me. The fighting in the living room now involves my teenager and the noise seems almost deafening when mixed with my son’s jabbering and my husband’s snores. And then as my eyes rest on the first story on my timeline I experience the worst kind of quiet. She’s gone, passed away the night before. She’s so young. It’s got to be wrong. It has to have said that her mother died. I close out of facebook then reopen it. I go straight to her timeline. And there it is, the post that tells me that yes, my friend is gone much too soon. A family member posted as her. A young life is over.

 

As the silence continues amidst the chaos of my life, I wonder how, why and when. She was truly the nicest person I ever knew. I dwell on the unfairness of it all for a moment. And then the silence lifts and I have to take part in the chaos again. My heart hurts the rest of the day and the moments of quiet return occasionally to tease me, to make me grateful for the chaos because in the fighting, jabbering and snoring, there is life, something my friend no longer has.