Doughnut does not squeak anymore. It has been three months since we last heard the high-pitched squeal of our little guinea pig. She used to sing every time the refrigerator door opened. It was Pavlovian magic. The door opened, and the guinea pig serenaded the kitchen.
Two days before Thanksgiving, Pancake, Doughnut's roommate, crossed the "Rainbow Bridge." Doughnut has not squeaked since the loss. The refrigerator door opens without its siren song.
Rewind 6 years... before Glenn, before teaching, before certainty-- at 23 years old, I had aged out of childhood, but I was not yet comfortable with an identity. I was 'in-between.' After returning from Thailand, I decided that my studio apartment felt lonely. On a clandestine trip to PetSmart, I fell in love with a long-haired orange guinea pig. My one-room apartment could not accommodate a cat or a dog, but the guinea pig with ragamuffin red hair (matching my own) was the perfect fit.
Pancake inspired several unpublished picture books, and she became a celebrity in my graduate coursework. One of my professors recently emailed me requesting an updated copy of the SmartBoard lesson, Where in the World is Pancake?
Pancake became a symbol of my transition out of the "in-between" and into the stability and responsibility of a career and marriage. Pancake was a reminder of who I was- Pancake tied together the lapse of time.
Several months into our marriage, Glenn, avid animal-lover and sweet husband of mine, insisted that Pancake needed a companion... Therefore, our family expanded. We named the new, tiny, 3-month-old guinea pig after my second favorite breakfast treat, doughnuts. Doughnut and Pancake became quite the duet at meal times.
As our family expanded, the guinea pigs brought us a lot of joy.
Doughnut's silence is irrationally painful. It is a reminder of all of the sounds that I used to take for granted... guinea pig squeals, bedtime prayers, Taylor Swift singalongs, the exhausting little boy raucous that I once knew so well.
It is the silence of loss; it is isolating, deceptive, and cruel.
This week, I learned that several of my students have been suffering in silence. In multiple incidents, students revealed their wounds by inflicting their pain upon others; they were isolated by the shrapnel of silence that I know all too well. I feel it every time I open the refrigerator door without a guinea pig chorus. I feel it every night as I whisper bedtime prayers to the ceiling. I feel it every evening, as I dread the drive home with an empty backseat.
Silence is an unexcused absence- a void that aches to be filled.
As I reflected on my teaching this week, I was reminded of our need to fill the silence. It is imperative that vulnerability is praised and silence expelled. We owe it to our children to advocate for honesty... to create music with our praise... to sing, squeal, and plead when the door is opened... to ensure that our silence does not become their void.