S
Shaant
Guest
Translating silence into healing across three generations.
Photo by Dinesh kag on Unsplash
In my family, silence was never soft.
It settled like smoke. It filled every room. You could almost choke on it.
My grandmother was โthe silence.โ She would rarely fight, rarely explain, yet her eyes told you the weight of silence.
Along with her, her family would gossip to fill the silence. One uncle would talk about another uncleโs faults, a cousin would mock someone who was not there, and the relative confidence of secrets would entertain the family.
The routine was so familiar that by the time I was a teenager, I had learned to keep anything worth sharing private.
Then, when everyone would get together, the atmosphere would change. Smiles, handshakes, polite laughter, but holding the sting of whatever had been spoken behind closed doors.
What we called family was just the performance of family.
Underneath it all, the silence of my grandmother was still the loudest truth.
Loss made the silence impossible to ignore
As the older generation began to feel the touch of illness and then death, the silence fractured.
The regrets we had for one another came forward, often indirectly. Via arguments over who was and wasnโt involved in visiting at the hospital. Via whispers regarding othersโ judgments of who was doing enough and who was not.
In the face of loss, we revealed the fragility we hid behind in the harmony that we presented as a family.
In those moments, my grandmotherโs silence felt different. I saw it as resignation, opposed to strength.
She adopted her disappointments so well, maybe because she grew up in a world in which speaking disappointments would only lead to pain.
Her own choice of silence had preserved her, perhaps more temporarily than anything, and yet left the rest of us uncertain and fumbling.
The gossip that existed around her turned cruel.
One aunt dismissed her jealousy over another auntโs depression as dramatics, even with knowledge that it was spurred on based on the fact that she was talked about and demonized behind her back.
I watched as unspoken suffering turned into ammunition.
Silence had ultimately not protected my grandmother from regret, nor had it saved the rest of us from picking it up as part of our inheritance.
Her house became a museum of unspoken regrets
When my grandmother became very fragile and her belongings were redistributed, it became clear that the truth of her life was strewn across the floor.
The house contained all manner of objects that looked to be valuable only in her mind. Worn-out furniture marinated in cigarette smoke, cheap costume jewelry, figurines she called โcrystalโ that were actually just glass.
Family combed through her possessions, looking frantically for hidden value. Some interviewed each other, certain someone must have taken the โgoodโ stuff.
But there was no โgoodโ stuff.
There was nothing worthy of safekeeping. No investments, no family heirlooms, or hidden treasure.
In fact, the inheritance was clutter and debt, all of which collected dust.
I took away only a platter and a tiny statue of an elephant.
There was no market value or direct aesthetic value, but they were the only things I felt were alive with her silence.
They told me more than she ever could.
Each tarnished plate, each accursed hutch, was a calendar of regret.
I still had no particular understanding of the interpretation of years of deceit.
The possessions told of many years of faux constructions, of words never spoken since, of dreams that melted into nothing.
Her possessions were not treasures. They were testimony.
Turning silence into my inheritance of healing
I have found that in my 30s, Iโve inherited something far more valuable than furniture or jewelry.
I inherited the silence.
Over that silence comes choice. Either hold on to it as intact or create something with it.
I decided I was not going to continue the cycle.
When my cousins wanted to pull me into the gossiping zone, I did not allow it. It was not easy, but sticking to that line left a small fracture of the previous way.
During conversations with my cousins, I began to speak in a new way. I named the discomfort, acknowledged the sickness, and slowly, the space between us was altered.
One memory comes back to me all the time when I think of her.
When I was a boy, I spent just an afternoon with her, both of us peeling peas into a metal bowl. My grandmother did not say much, just hummed softly, but when I asked her why she did not tell me stories like other grandmothers, she stopped humming.
She handed me the pea pod and said quietly, โSome stories are too heavy for words.โ
That was it. She started humming again, as if nothing had occurred.
Yet in an instant, I could see the shape of her world that she would not put into words.
I did not know it then, but now I understand she was trying to protect herself from the burden of memory.
I also began to see my grandmotherโs regrets in a different way, as lessons.
She never voiced regrets, but through the silence, idle gossip, and useless things, I heard her. That neglect creates wounds. Regrets keep multiplying when they are not voiced.
By sharing these stories today, I give her silence a voice she never could locate.
Healing within three generations is not about ignoring the obvious.
Itโs about understanding. Itโs about forgivable silence, but not excusing. Itโs about breaking cycles of harm through storytelling.
My grandmotherโs regrets are not burdens on me, but a guide.
The weight of silence ends where my voice begins
My grandmother never openly stated her regrets, but they were always evident.
In the gossip that passed for truth. In the knick-knacks that passed for treasure. And in the silences that dictated how we managed to love one another.
I carry them with me now as both a warning and a gift.
By speaking that which she could not, I transform her silence into healing.
I am choosing to leave behind truth, not silence.
How I Became the Custodian of My Grandmotherโs Unspoken Regrets was originally published in Know Thyself, Heal Thyself on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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