A Dreamweaving for When Absence Feels Loud

On Grief, Loss & Sorrow

There is a paradox in grief: absence can feel louder than presence ever was. The empty chair screams. The silent phone rings in your mind. The space where they should be makes more noise than anything around it. This dreamweaving is for those moments when absence is so loud you can barely hear anything else.

This is not imagination or exaggeration. The human mind notices absence with excruciating acuity. What is missing often feels more present than what remains. The space they left is not empty — it is filled with the roar of their not-being-there.

If their absence is deafening you today, this is a space to acknowledge that strange, inverted presence. You are not going crazy. You are experiencing how grief actually works.

The Presence of Absence

Absence is not nothing. It is a kind of negative space that draws the eye, demands attention, refuses to be ignored. The things that should be there but aren't become louder than the things that remain.

• The quiet house that used to be full of their sounds
• The empty seat at the table, at holidays, in the car
• The phone that doesn't ring with their number
• The stories you want to tell them but can't
• The future events they will never see
• The daily routines that no longer include them

Each of these absences makes itself known, often more insistently than their presence ever did. You notice what's missing with painful clarity.

Why Absence Screams

The brain is wired to notice change, to detect what's different. When someone significant is suddenly gone, every space they occupied becomes a reminder. The brain keeps expecting them and keeps being reminded they are not there. This creates a kind of cognitive dissonance that feels like noise.

Additionally, you may have taken their presence for granted — not in a negative way, but in the way we take all familiar things for granted. Now that familiarity is gone, and you notice what you once didn't even see.

A Meditation for Loud Absence

This meditation acknowledges the deafening quality of absence and invites God's presence into the noise.

Lord, their absence is so loud. Louder than anything else in my life right now. The empty spaces roar. The silence screams. I cannot escape the presence of their absence. Come into this noise. Speak peace into the places that are shouting. Let Your presence soften the edges of this absence. I know You are here, even in the negative space, even in what is missing. Fill what cannot be filled. Quiet what cannot be silenced. Let me feel You in the loud absence, a presence that does not replace them but accompanies me in missing them.

After the meditation, sit with the absence. Let it be loud if it must be. You do not need to silence it. You only need to know you are not alone in it.

Living with Loud Absence

Over time, the loudness typically softens. The absence remains, but it becomes less deafening. These approaches may help in the meantime.

• Don't fight the loudness — it often increases resistance
• Create new routines that don't expect their presence
• Slowly reclaim spaces that feel dominated by their absence
• Talk to someone about how loud the absence feels
• Write to them — express what the absence is like
• Trust that the volume will decrease over time

The absence may never be silent. But it can become a manageable sound rather than a deafening roar.