This has been a season of silence for me.
Not the peaceful, candle-lit kind of silence but the deep, disorienting silence that follows loss. The kind that remains when you realize your brother is not coming back.
Cancer took him.
When my brother passed, the noise of the world became unbearable. All of it seemed painfully small in the face of eternity.
So I stepped away.
There is something about standing at the edge of death that rearranges your values overnight. You realize how much time you’ve spent rushing. How many arguments didn’t matter. How many moments you assumed you’d have “later.”
Life is too short for “later.”
In the weeks after losing my brother, I found myself craving stillness.
I wanted God.
So I chose silence.
When I disconnected from the noise, something unexpected happened: I began to hear my own thoughts again.
And beneath them, I began to sense God.
In early mornings, in long walks, in moments where I stopped asking “Why?” and started asking, “What now, Lord?”
I found space for spiritual growth I didn’t ask for but desperately needed.
My brother’s life taught me that time is not guaranteed and presence matters more than presents. Cancer may have taken his body but it did not take the legacy of how he loved. It did not take the memories and it did not take the lessons.
If this season has carved anything into my heart, it is this: life is too short to live distracted.
Too short to assume tomorrow is promised.
Silence has reminded me of what matters.
Depth over noise.
Eternity over urgency.
Loss changes you. If you let it, it softens you. It deepens you. It clarifies what your life is truly about.
This season has been about stepping away from the world to draw closer to God. About grieving fully. About honoring my brother by living more intentionally.
If you are in your own season of silence, I want you to know that you are not weak for stepping back or for grieving deeply. Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is be still.
And in that stillness, you may just find that God was closer than you ever realized.
In loving memory
