The Sounds...of Silence

The day started out pretty good. The cat left me alone for a good part of the morning and I was able to sleep until 8:30am. Kind of nice.
My husband must have slept well too, all through the night, which explains why I slept so solidly.
Pain didn't wake him.
But it didn't take long into the day before he was shutting himself out from the world as he dealt with the pain that did come.
We managed to get to church on time. And he managed to sleep through the message again, head down, leaning over
and over
and over - head pops back up right before he loses complete balance, for a moment and then it starts again.
We sat through lunch in silence. His head down once again.
Sometimes he was reading the newspaper, sometimes he was sleeping, sometimes he was just trying to relieve the pressure from the pain.
I don't say anything.
He doesn't answer much when he's like this.
So I just let him handle it alone. What can I do? I offered all the help I know how to give and it doesn't change anything. He's in pain and he doesn't think there is anything that can or will help.
So there you go.
I mean if I was in that much pain I would be looking for answers, for relief....whatever I could afford..anything within reason.
I don't get it.
Well anyway, he had offered to vacuum the kitchen yesterday, was in too much pain to do it but after taking some meds for his pain he seemed to think he could do it today.
So, that involves me getting the vacuum, me plugging it in and the him wheeling around in his electric wheelchair trying to do it. It's not a thorough job, it's not even usually a very good job but it gets the worst of the debris up off the ground but today
no.
When he asked me to move the vacuum to the area of the floor on the other side of the stove, I saw where he had been and asked him if it was done.
Oh my.
At that point, I just told him to go out into the other room and I would finish it up.

~pause~

Ho Hum.
There are just no words.

The rest of the day, I might as well lived alone.
No words from him.
I was baking and cleaning up in the kitchen with the music on.
Music that made me happy.
Music that made me want to dance. Music that made want to sing.
Music that made me not feel
so alone.

He had the TV on.
He slipped in and out of sleep.
His head was down.
He was quiet.
I guess he was alone too.
But he did not have silence.
He had the screaming of his body from the pain.
And he tried to silence it with his head down, with quietness and with sleep.