The Sound of Silence

Hello, darkness, my old friend

I've come to talk with you again

Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds while I was sleeping

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence

- Simon and Garfunkel

Simon and Garfunkel's song "The Sound of Silence" poetically portrays darkness as a friend and confidante, a canvas where seeds of thought are sown in silence. Within this silent symphony, I find echoes of my own family's narrative - an intricate story of familial bonds broken and silence taking a disturbing toll on relationships.

In this song, a poignant question lingers: What grows within silence? My uncles, Nick and Chris, lived the answer. Their tale was of siblingship, replaced by unspoken disputes and familial bonds fraying on the loom of resentment.

Born under the shadow of World War II in Greece, they transitioned from childhood companions to war-time allies, sharing a bond as strong as the ancient Greek columns. But as adulthood took hold, so did a palpable silence, heralding a decades-long estrangement cut more profoundly than the Acropolis trench.

Even living within the same sprawling apartment complex in Athens, their brotherly bond had soured, mutating into an ironic solitude. Their children, who should have been playmates, became unwitting victims of the schism, adopting the estrangement as if it were a heritage passed down through generations. A house divided, indeed, was a lesson too well learned.

The haunting refrain of Simon and Garfunkel's song rings true: "Silence like cancer grows." My uncles embodied this metaphor. Uncle Nick, once the lively soul of the family, fell to the literal cancer that devoured him. Uncle Chris was consumed by the metaphorical cancer of regret. Their silence metastasized over time, seeping into their relationship and their children's.

The vivid memory of Uncle Nick, once brimming with life, reduced to a fragile figure, is poignant. His trademarks were his animated conversations, characteristic hand gestures, and contagious laughter. Yet, even as the illness took hold, he clung to his solitude, allowing only his sister, Effie, to share his suffering.

Meanwhile, Uncle Chris maintained an outward composure, brewing a potent blend of guilt, remorse, and perhaps even unexpressed love for his estranged brother. His silence was a fortress, shielding his inner turmoil from the world's gaze. But beneath this façade, he was a man grappling with the wreckage that silence had wreaked.

The reconciliation of life and death presents a unique beauty – the acknowledgment of our mortality. For Uncle Chris, his brother's mortality and the ensuing self-reflection, it prompted could have been the first fissure in his fortress of silence.

The aftermath of their estrangement hung around like an eerie echo of a melancholic tune. Uncle Nick's fondness for alcohol, which started as a means of escapism, spiraled into a self-destructive habit. His ultimate aim was to blur the harsh realities and revisit childhood camaraderie and shared resilience despite the shadow of war. His passing marked the end of a journey marred by unsaid words, regrets, and the silent devastation of relationships.

This intricate web of silence and resentment impacted their lives like a genetic disease, passing from generation to generation. The sound of silence was the recurring theme, deafening in its quietude. "Silence like cancer grows" - a line that encapsulates the saga of my uncles' lives. But, in their world, the silence wasn't merely the absence of sound but the deafening echo of absence itself.