The Beauty of Keeping Mum

All things, great and small, start out as nothing. I began to go hoarse in late summer. I would apologize when rasping unintelligibly on a call, take another slug of water, and chalk it up to a passing cold. Could it be COVID-19? I worried it might be more of the cancer I’d had three years earlier. We say “I’m losing my voice,” but we don’t expect something to sneak up and steal it.

Soon I became a mere whisperer, an annoyance at the dinner table. The dread over what might be causing it was soon counterbalanced by a sense of relief. I came to appreciate the clarity of just listening and leaving things unsaid. Keeping mum revealed unknown beauty in my relationships with myself and others. This Thanksgiving will and should be wildly different from those that came before. As you join in the oddity of eating with