Until six years ago, I viewed loss as an abstract, a compulsive, looping thought that had trailed me since adolescence. It was just a fear, I’d remind myself, something distant and inevitable, but not an imminent reality or an indicator of oncoming tragedy. Most of my peers had had some experience with death by their teen years—perhaps the loss of a family pet or an ailing elderly relative—but despite my anxieties and obsessive preoccupation with mortality, I made it to my 20s entirely unscathed.
And then, on an unceremonious afternoon in October, my father died suddenly, and my entire world was upended.
Grief is a sensorial experience. There was the gummy dry mouth taste that lingered after I shakily delivered my eulogy; the soft decay of floral arrangements and the scent of clothes still haunted by his cologne; the feeling of interlocked fingers steadying my trembling hands; the staggering sight of a funeral, a sea of black suits and swollen eyes. But above all and even still, long after the others have faded, it is the sounds of grief that remain, a quiet that's sometimes a gentle echo, like a rock skimming across the surface of a pond, and other times, an inescapable, cacophonic din.
In the weeks that followed my dad’s death, I found that my pulse quickened and eyes welled at the wail of an ambulance or any sound even remotely approximating the beep of hospital monitors. The three voicemails I had left from him, perfunctory messages checking whether I needed a ride or something picked up, felt sacred—though I could not bring myself to listen to them until years later, when I feared I had forgotten his voice entirely. Totally unsentimental classic rock hits would catch me off guard and leave me weeping in uncomfortably public locales: a bookstore, a baseball game, a collegiate a cappella performance.
And then, there were the silences.
Perhaps the greatest unsung pains of grief are those total voids of sound. For years, I had taken for granted the squeal of his ancient, perpetually stressed sedan, ever audible as he whipped it around the corner; the tinny sound of Garth Brooks echoing throughout the house from his phone’s speaker, replaced by a heavy, solemn quiet; his slippers squeaking on the floor as he did the twist in the kitchen, burning french toast while we spun around the linoleum, a sound I would never hear again.
The way he laughed and said my name, those goofy hemming-and-hawing noises he would punctuate a joke with—all irretrievably gone, fading alongside the sharpness of memories, edges blurred and uncertain. Then, of course, there was the most painful hush of all: never again hearing an expression of love, encouragement, or comfort.
Sometimes in moments of stillness, I’d sink into myself and try to conjure up these sounds, lost to death and time. I always seemed to come up short, unable to trust my recollection without confirmation or a point of comparison. These moments felt deeply unsettling: Could I really not recall the voice of the man who had helped raise me, a person so fundamental to who I am and the ways in which I express myself?
