Forgive me. I failed to hear your voice, and in the silence feared that you had left me. I had trained my ears to hear a booming sound. I yearned for a clear bell, straining to hear the call that would surely come. The loud shout that would rise over the fog with conviction.

I raged and wept and writhed in the vast silence my mind perceived. It assaulted my every sense. Why would you not make yourself known to me? I, who strained so earnestly to hear your command.

In my presumptuous overreaching I deafened myself to the soft, subtle whisper that was, and always has been, you. I see now that the silence was not as black and solid as I feared, but was brindled and infused with the soft undertones of your voice. Each word lingering, shimmering, waiting to be heard and responded to.

You were always there. So close and unimposing that my senses had forgotten your presence. How many times had I groped blindly past you in my quest to hear and be heard? Yet you remained, ever-patient, whispering gentle overtures to me…