You Learn More By Listening Than You Do By Talking

I never knew my grandparents very well, and I never met my great grandparents, but I have heard the stories of their lives often enough to feel a bond with each one of them. Many times, my mother told me the story of her Cherokee grandmother. She knew the exact day she would die, and she called all her children and grandchildren into the room for a final talk.

My mother was about nine years old and as she entered the room, was apprehensive facing the old dying woman in the bed. Although her grandmother had been a mentor to her, the relationship was now ending on this side of Heaven and my mother was heartbroken.

Her grandmother motioned for her to enter the quiet room. They were now alone as each family member had taken their turn to speak to her, and only those present would know what was said and carry those private words with them for the rest of their lives.

My mother approached her and placed her ear next to her grandmother’s mouth. “Listen,” was all that she said. My mother, being a child, was not sure if she had meant to listen up, for she was about to speak or to listen for some other reason. That was the last thing my great grandmother ever said. She died right there in front of my mother.

As she grew into adulthood, my mother realized what her grandmother had meant. She meant listen, really listen to others, and her advice to me was that you learn more by listening than you do by talking. Try it sometime. I know it’s hard to do and believe me, as someone whom my mother gave the Indian name “Running Mouth” to as a child, I know how hard it is to be quiet.

However, you will be amazed at what you hear when you are silent. Let others have their turn for a while. Everyone has something to say and we all want to be heard but wait, you will get your turn.

Don’t interrupt and let them speak. Just listen.

When my mother lay dying, I would sometimes sit by her bedside and listen to her breath. I knew that at any moment I might be witness to the last breath she took, and I wanted to be there to hear it. She talked a lot as she was dying and although her mind was at one time clear as a bell, the tumor had robbed her brain of oxygen and at times she was confused. That was hard for me to accept.

My mother was supposed to know what day it was, and what time it was. She was not to awaken me at three in the morning demanding her coffee thinking it was 9 am. It simply wasn’t right. I fought long and hard not to challenge her during those last few months of life. It was my nature though to question, to challenge, and to be right. Ah, the arrogance of the French!

Thank goodness she embraced her Cherokee side and was a kind and gentle soul who accepted me for the faulty human I was.

Toward the end, she would stare off into space and focus her attention on the left side of the room. “Who is that man?” she would often ask. A man whom she described as well dressed in a black suit and tie. Knowing no one was there, we would turn and look anyway, feeling somewhat uneasy for doing so. My oldest niece asked me once who she was seeing and if in fact there was a man in her room why she could not see him. I told her not to be afraid that there was indeed a man there, but we could not see him for he was not here for us. He was here to help Grandma cross over. She shivered. I told her that one day someone would come for each one of us.

As she lay dying, my mother had a dream of two angels. One was on one side of a door, while the other stood on the outside. “They came to show me how to die,” she said wistfully. “All you have to do is close your eyes and you wake up in another room.” I listened intently. “I told them,” she continued, “I wasn’t ready yet, and they said okay, they would come back when I was.”

Angels coming to Earth to show us how to die. The simplest of acts was obviously not so simple. There was a way to die, a method, and they had taken their time to come and show my mother how to do it.

I think most of us walk through darkness for the better part of our lives. We blindly feel our way around, thinking we actually know something. In truth, we know nothing. There is so much to learn, to know, to hear, it is impossible for us to really know it all. Before I experienced losses in my life, I thought I had it all figured out. I knew the answers to it all. In reality, I knew nothing.

I thought I was content in my little world of knowing and thinking I knew when in fact I really wasn’t. I hadn’t been listening but talking for most of my life and not really hearing what was going on around me. You think you know where it’s at, but is that where you want to be? I was wrapped in a blanket of false security that did nothing for me, not even keep me warm at night. I really had no clue. It wasn’t until I went through hell and back that I came back a different person.

My eyes and ears were now open and willing to see and listen. I wanted to make the world a better place instead of just taking up space within it. But that “new” me was still a long way off.

I wonder if she had listened to the angels as they whispered softly in her ear. Did they know she was deaf in her left ear and to speak to her right? I assumed since they were angels, they knew those sorts of things, but it bothered me anyway. Did she simply close her crystalline blue eyes and wake up in another room? Did they come back to get her when she was ready? Or was the man in the room waiting for her and what was his role in her death?

The body will die when it needs to.

During those final short months, I learned so much from my mother. I think when we are facing our own death, we speak differently, as though now what we are saying really means something. But don’t kid yourself. Everything your parent says to you means something. Everything a loved one has to tell you is important. Everything a child has to say has merit. My mother used to tell me as a child the reason older people lose their hearing is because no one ever speaks to them anymore. Whether or not that is true, why take that chance? She said everyone has a story and wants to be heard. So, listen.

As tragic as it was to watch her wither and die, it was a blessing to me to be a part of it. She was at my beginning and I was at her ending. During those months, I really listened to my mother. I not only heard every word she said, but every breath she took. In those last breaths, I could hear her strength and determination to live. But as the cancer ravaged her body, her breathing became short and shallow and the morphine could no longer hide her pain. She told me, “I love you, but you cannot make life worth living for me anymore.”

I understood, so I let her go. I heard her - probably for the first time in my life and I listened, really listened. I am so glad I did. ♥