The Territorial

It’s funny how silence can scream. Used to be, the quiet was something I craved—especially after a long day of deadlines, bad coffee, and folks who insisted on forwarding every email twice, just in case I missed it the first time.

But lately, silence doesn’t feel like peace. It feels like a door that was once open and now won’t budge.

I noticed it first after the phone stopped ringing at night. I’d call and get the usual, “You always call right when I’m about to eat,” followed by twenty minutes of them not eating because they were too busy telling me about the neighbor’s new truck or the birds at the feeder.

Somehow, their voice made the world smaller, more manageable, like I wasn’t just out here trying to steer my ship alone in a sea of noise. And then one day, it was quiet.

When someone you love slips out of your daily routine and into memory, it leaves a shape behind—like a pothole in your favorite road, just big enough to rattle your bones every time you hit it. You keep driving it anyway, even though you know where it is.

Buddy, my dog, doesn’t understand any of this, of course. He knows I’ve been sitting too long and sighing too much.

He’ll nose his leash and thump his tail like, “Time to get back to the land of the living, boss.”

Dogs are better than people at moving forward. They grieve, sure, but they don’t wallow.

They sniff, they wag, they keep going. So, the other day, I followed his lead.

We walked to the river, where the cottonwoods rustled like an old record playing just out of tune. I sat on a bench that still bore initials carved into the wood—someone else’s way of marking that they, too, had once been here, once loved someone enough to leave their names behind.

And I thought, maybe silence isn’t just an absence, it’s a place where something new begins. It’s kind of like the space between breaths, or the pause before the first note of a song, where one listens instead of talking.

I heard the river that day—not just the splash, but the rhythm, a meadowlark in the distance, and the sound of my boots settling in the dust. And I heard myself whisper, “I miss you,” not because I thought anyone could perceive it, but because I needed to say it out loud.

When we got home, Buddy curled up beside me, like he always does, and I did something I hadn’t done in weeks: I played a voicemail I’d saved.

Their voice. Just saying, “Hey, it’s me. Call when you can.”

It still calmed me. Still reminded me that love doesn’t disappear just because someone’s gone quiet.

And now, in the loudest kind of silence, I’m starting to hear life again—not all at once, but enough to know that tomorrow holds a bit of hope. That maybe grief, like music, has rests between the notes for a reason.

So, if you’re there—sitting in the silence—don’t rush it. But don’t fear it either.

Let it speak to you. Let it heal a little of what it broke.

And when you’re ready, lace up your shoes, grab the leash, and let the dog lead the way back to living because we ain’t supposed to stay still forever.