Enjoying the peace of silence

Today my Father's caregiver asked for a day off. So I spent the day with him. My Father is nearly a hundred years old. He is healthy, can move around freely, albeit a bit slow and eats heartily if he likes the food served. His only weakness is his hearing impairment.

Many of us might think that being silent is a negative quality and thus the saying "the silence is deafening". But watching him, I think he is comfortable with himself. Although he was silent throughout the day, he was active...he read the newspapers, English and Chinese newspapers from page to page, he meddled with his writing table, taking out everything and putting the contents back again, he made some entries into a diary for a while, he watched television (the TV was silent), he had lunch and tea and gave sighs of satisfaction when he finished. Today in particular, he made no attempt at all to communicate with me. It looks like he is enjoying his silence. So I chose to remain quiet as well and did not try to pick a conversation with him and break his peaceful silence.

My Father now and before