‘Death and Laughter’ by Kaile Shilling

“How will we know?” 
“Know what?” I reply. 
“That she’s gone?” Dad answers simply. 
“She stops breathing,” I respond. I remember when I had to put my cat to sleep, the final exhale, the stopping, and the weird shudder that followed, thirty seconds to a minute later, as the final pockets of air were pushed out by collapsed muscles. 

After dinner he goes to the office in the barn, and I sit with Mom. When I was in high school, someone said once that when you can’t do anything else, you can at least share silence with a person. That sharing silence, it is enough. It was, of course, in reference to some high school angst, but it stuck with me for decades. And it comes to me again now, as I sit in silence. Sharing silence with my mother. Grateful for years of Quaker meetings that taught me how. How to carry silence. How to share silence. And I realize, in the way that is only earned through time and living, that sharing silence is deep and profound and is simply sometimes all we can do. Dayenu, as my Jewish husband would say. It is enough. 

My sister arrives, finally, from halfway around the world — somehow arriving the evening after the morning she left because time travel is real if you live enough time zones away.