Finding a Quiet Place

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I was a young girl when I first recognized in myself the need for quiet and solitude. 

As one of six children growing up in a small home, I became creative in seeking out my alone time. Sometimes, I got lucky and slipped into the living room with a gripping library read– a place normally off limits to my siblings and me– without anyone noticing. Often, I escaped to the room I shared with my twin sister, or to the large walk-in closet at the end of the upstairs hallway. As I got older, my favorite retreat was the park across the street where the skyscraping elms provided exquisite quietude.

In those stolen tranquil moments, I read. I journaled. And I pulled out thoughts and experiences that I’d stuffed away to reexamine later. I emerged from those brief withdrawals, both soothed and strengthened. Back then, I didn’t know anything about the healing qualities of reflection or meditation. It would be decades before I learned those tools and incorporated them into daily life. 

Several weeks ago, my husband was admitted to the hospital. On the second day of his stay, I strolled into the hospital room expecting to relive the same experience as we’d had the day before: him, connected to an IV and monitors, and me in the stiff chair by the windows with my laptop; him, wrangling a stiff, hypoallergenic pillow into a comfy shape under his head, and me on the lookout for the nurse who I could quiz about his stats and upcoming tests. But sometime in the wee hours of the previous night, my spouse had acquired a roommate named Tim.  

As I entered the reconfigured hospital space made smaller by another bed and medical equipment, Tim welcomed me as if I’d come to visit him, too. When I slipped behind the curtain to my husband’s bedside, Tim raised the volume on his TV to decibels affording the patients across the hall an easy listen. When a parade of nurses and aides invaded our conjoined quarters, I gleaned that Tim had fallen at home and hit his head. Because he was a high fall risk, bed alarms were activated. Every five minutes, or so it seemed, Tim popped out of bed, and then a team of nurses peeled into the already congested room. They cajoled Tim back into bed, reiterated what had happened to him, and why he needed to stay put. 

After a few of these calamitous intrusions, I felt the need to escape, to flee to a quiet space. Even though my psyche craved downtime, I knew I couldn’t leave my husband. Frustration simmered. When the situation failed to improve, I whispered complaints to my bedridden husband. He pulled the thin hospital blanket up to his chin and closed his eyes, too sick to care. 

I ambled to the window, grateful for a sliver of natural light. In the courtyard below, several benches held people sipping coffee and checking cell phones. In a far corner, near a magnificent shedding sugar maple, an empty bench beckoned. I longed for that solitary bench. For the cozy chapel down the hall. For the contained privacy of the car that I’d parked in the hospital lot.

When I turned away from the window, my husband had dozed off amid the mayhem. My heart melted. He, more than I, needed peace and solitude to hasten healing. I picked up the bedside phone and dialed the patient care advocate who had stopped in earlier. I requested a private room as soon as possible. And when, they wheeled my husband into a clean and empty room, both of us breathed in the silence as if it were a tonic. I reached for his hand. 

He gazed up at me, a slow grin infused color into his pallid complexion. “Thanks,” he said, “I didn’t know I needed this. The quiet is amazing.” 

After he slid into a restful sleep, I dropped into the chair by the window and picked up my morning meditation. My shoulders drifted away from my ears, and I sidelined the troubles of the day. Those inward moments sustained and boosted me. I came to realize that what I had recognized in myself as a young girl– the need for interludes of quiet, solitude, and reflection– had allowed me to help and support someone I loved. 

Because of this episode, I offer this: Never underestimate the healing power of silence and the act of slowing down.

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