Silence in the bedroom

Two life changing events happened to me at the age of 4.  The first was that I underwent open heart surgery, the second had no less impact on my life, my parents got divorced.  Now we all know that there are many ways that a child can be affected by divorce. In fact as far as I understand parts of my wife’s family were very worried about the fact that she was marrying the child of divorced parents.  Yes, there are certain issues that I deal with in my life connected to the divorce that I would rather not have to. But all in all I believe that my sister and I came out pretty well.

After the divorce one of the greatest AH moments for me as a child took place while sleeping over at a friend’s house.  As we were drifting off to sleep, I heard a strange noise coming from my friend’s parents room (no its not what you are thinking), they were talking. This may not seem to be anything special to some of you, but to me it was something that I had not experienced since the age of 4, it was always silent in our house after my mother went to bed.

So, back to my friends parents, it was at that moment that I promised myself that I would always speak to my wife when we went to bed. I like to call it our ‘Bed Chat.’ When I decided this at the age of 9, it was so that my children would hear that their parents communicate, so that our children would grow up knowing that their mother and father have a deep connection beyond the functioning of getting the kids to bed, have an ever growing love for each other that means that no matter how tired they are, their parents want to communicate with each other.  Later on in my life when I actually got married this nightly ‘bed chat’ became essential to the communication between my wife and I. Unfortunately, like most promises we make to each other or ourselves, the inspiration wears off, life takes a hold and brings us down to ‘reality’ convincing us that it was a stupid commitment to make. “You will talk about it tomorrow” or “I am sure she is too tired to listen” are beliefs that destroy this promise.

G-d tells us “It is not good for man to be alone,” yet tonight we will stand in silence, with only one sound echoing through our country, the siren, the siren that cuts through us all, the siren that drowns out but at the same time strengthens the sound of our wailing mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, husbands and wives and who after so many wars, so many bloody terrorist attacks are now ALONE.  Tonight and tomorrow we mourn with the children who no longer hear their parents’ bed chat, we cry with the wives who lie alone in bed, and we bow our heads with the husbands who will get into bed and begin to talk but will have no one to listen.

We are all connected to these people who have given the ultimate price for our nation. We thank you, we hug you, we stand with you!  Tonight in your honor, I ask all of us to commit along with me to never forgetting the importance of our ‘bed chat,’ never allowing an email to be more important than our children hearing us connect, never being to tired to check with our spouse how their day was and never let ‘life’ take hold and squash what is important to us. I plead with you, don’t give up on your ‘bed chat.’

Inspiring Self Improvement and Relationship Empowerment www.ravnatanalexander.com