Sometimes the silence screams.

That’s what I felt standing at the podium in room 212 a few mornings ago.  I had just asked my students to describe in their journals a moment when they’ve experienced love.  They started writing, and I walked up and down the aisles of desks.

“Anyone want to share what they wrote?” I finally asked.

Usually, that journal topic stirs discussion.  We had just read Mama’s love speech in A Raisin in the Sun.  Plus, Valentine’s Day was right around the corner, so the timing was perfect.  But this time, not one hand went up.

I looked around the room, and clearly nobody wanted to touch the topic.

I looked at Shawn staring blankly behind his glasses.  The week before, he had shared in class about his mom getting beaten by the end of a pistol.

“All that did was stir up hate inside me,” he had told us.  I knew Shawn’s hand wasn’t going up.

Closer to the front was Elise.  She had spoken in class the week before about her dad taking his life and how it changed her.  She sat in the silence looking down at her desk.

“How about you, Bri?” I asked, trying to be a little more direct.

She sits in front, usually with a smile on her face, and loves speaking in Spanish with her friends.  She looked at me, her brown eyes framed by her black hair.

“I see it in Disney movies,” she said, almost apologetically.

At first, I thought she was joking, but she never laughed.

The bell was about to ring, and as kids packed up their notebooks, a terrible question broke my heart.  Do a majority of these kids honestly feel they’ve just missed out on love?

My students left with all their brokenness, and I felt cold.  It wasn’t just the air rattling through the vent above me; it was the silence.

The silence screamed that morning in room 212, but one week before that discussion, when the silence should have been screaming even louder, my wife and I were surprised by love.

Ann was dying.  She and her family have been our friends for years, so we drove to her son and daughter-in-law’s house where they were taking care of her.  There was silence in our car until Deb spoke up.

“Amy said to text her and she’ll meet us on their porch.”

We both knew Amy’s reason for the text.  She didn’t want to disturb Ann.  The cancer had taken over, and at 78, her home no longer had a Colorado street address.  Her street was made of gold.

We parked and walked up their driveway.  Part of me thought Amy would shuffle out slowly with bloodshot eyes and sagging shoulders, like she’d been up all night.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I thought for sure she’d be overwhelmed.

The door opened, and Amy didn’t come out shuffling.  She came out with bright eyes and a smile.  Her dogs met us first with wagging tails.

“Hey Amy,” I said as she approached.

“Sorry about meeting you out here,” she said.  “Everyone’s watching a sermon, and we didn’t want the dogs barking.”

“How’s Ann doing?” I asked.

Amy told us about playing some worship music in Ann’s room.  She thought she was sleeping, but when she walked by again, Ann’s hand was lifted up.

“She was worshipping God!”  Amy whispered.

“That’s amazing!” Deb whispered back, and I felt chills just picturing Ann raising her hand.

“How about you?” Deb asked.

She told us about her family being in town and about sweet moments rubbing Ann’s back.  Tears filled her eyes as she talked, but then a smile started to come.

“One of the hospice nurses was checking on Ann,” Amy said as she wiped away tears, “and when she checked her feet, the nurse said, ‘I’ve seen a lot of feet, Ann, but I don’t think I’ve seen better feet than yours.'”

“What?” Deb said.

“Yes,” Amy whispered. “Just before Ann found out about her cancer, she felt like God told her she was going to die.”

She looked at us, letting the story settle.

“You guys, she never spends money on herself, but that day, she got her toenails painted.”

The afternoon sun, like Amy’s story, was warming us, and we stood there in awe that God would speak to Ann like that.

Amy invited us into her house, and the three of us walked into her kitchen.

“Has it been tough for you and Colin hosting everyone?” I asked, leaning against their counter.

Amy shook her head.

“A few days ago, I thought we were losing her, so I told everyone to come over.”

She pushed one of the dogs back as she talked.

“We sang worship songs with her and prayed; it was so sweet, and then Eric read a dying person’s prayer.”

As Amy told her story, she started smiling again.

“When Eric read, ‘Lord you know my regrets,'” she said, holding her hand to her mouth, “Ann interrupted and shouted, ‘I don’t have any regrets!'”

The three of us laughed out loud.

“Everyone in the room laughed when she said that,” Amy continued, “and when Eric read the prayer ‘Lord, you know my fears,’ Ann shouted, ‘I’m not afraid!'”

All three of us laughed again, and it felt so good, like the warm sunlight coming down in splotches through the trees outside.

Ann and the rest of her family were still watching the sermon when we finished talking, so we decided not to interrupt.  But just standing in that house, listening to Amy’s stories felt like a gift only God could give.

I couldn’t help but think about the lack of silence in that house.  When death should’ve been stealing the show, love brought its own kind of noise—prayers, singing, and even laughter.  Best of all, Ann wasn’t silent.  She let everyone know she had no regrets and no fear.

Unlike the cold reality of my classroom, that house was filled with the warmth of a love so strong it even prompted Ann to paint her toenails.  Imagine that!  Color and laughter in the face of death.  That’s the kind of love I long for my students to know, and it’s the kind of love that’s still changing me today.

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