Alone… I Am Finally Not Alone
Revisiting Falling Silence nearly a decade after I wrote it.
In my hands, I hold a book I wrote almost a decade ago. A book that shares the deepest, most intimate parts of my life—growing up without the internet, with no way of connecting to the outside world, raised in an isolated environment where everything was filtered through one train of thought.
The weight of the book is noticeable every time I take it off the shelf or put it back. The weight is appropriate. It reflects the weight of the story written inside.
I stare into my own eyes on the cover as if I am bridging time.
The woman I am. The woman I was. The young girl who experienced the trauma that brought nightmares then and can still bring a pause to me now.
The woman I become is tied to all of us.
Every life experience creates something of the person who comes after.
I remember setting up a camera to take my own photographs for the book. Putting on different outfits and different hats. Looking at the photographs in Lightroom through the eyes of a photographer and being critical of the lighting, shadows, pose, and facial expression.
One photograph stood out.
It eventually became the cover of Falling Silence.
Everything in that photograph held symbolism for me. The white hat represented the white veil. The positioning of the image, where my mouth isn’t shown, represented silence. The soft blue backdrop represented the sadness and heartache of my wedding day—a day when I felt that every person I knew in my life had betrayed me.
Nearly a decade later, I feel the haunting familiarity of being alone as I set up another camera to photograph the book.
I am alone in a makeshift photography studio in the downstairs basement laundry room. I am surrounded by paper towels, toilet paper, shampoo, laundry soap, and other household necessities stacked on shelves. The washer and dryer hum as a family member does laundry. They peek in, making sure they aren’t disturbing me as they switch loads.
Alone…
I place the book on the stands and position teacup holders to keep it open.
I reflect on the loneliness I felt for much of my life because I could no longer trust the people I had known. They had kept silent about the ceremony inside the Mormon temple—a ceremony they kept secret because they believed it was of God.
Alone…
The distance of realizing that the God I had prayed to all my life was not the God I understood them to believe in.
Alone…
Wondering whether there was a God at all, or whether my prayers had simply been a fantasy of my mind.
And here, in this unfinished basement laundry room, I hear the patter of my grandchildren’s feet as they squeal with laughter upstairs.
I am surrounded by all four of my sons. Strong men who came together to ensure that we could survive challenging economic times.
Alone…
I am finally not alone.
“Here at the Homestead, I am surrounded by love sealed with trust.”
Together on Sunday, we go to Mass. We kneel and thank Christ for the grace He has given us. When Mass is over, we go downstairs and join the rest of our Catholic family for a meal we have all helped prepare.
We begin in prayer.
Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord.
As I began pulling books from the shelf to photograph for this website, memories of the events—and memories of myself writing about them—flooded back.
I have never regretted writing the books within The Art of Defining Me.
I have never regretted writing Falling Silence.
As I open the book to photograph its spreads, I scan the pages. The voice from the past whispers to me through black letters on white paper.
There is a tenderness in the way I handle the book because it deserves the reverence of telling a story of survival.
Nearby is a notebook.
Casually written on its cover is the title of the final book in the series:
The Last Door.
I touch it and place it on the stand to photograph.
There is a knock.
“CC, can I come in?”
I open the door and greet my daughter-in-law, who is pregnant. She peers curiously at what I have set up around the room—different photography stations for the different series of books I have written.
We talk and laugh about the two rambunctious little boys we can hear upstairs before she hurries off to see what they are up to.
Alone…
When I finish photographing Falling Silence, I close the book and place it back on the shelf.
I smile.
I say a prayer of gratitude for the young woman who survived. For the woman who wrote the book and never gave up on taking one more step forward.
And I pray for the woman I will become—that one day, she too will whisper a prayer of gratitude for the woman I am today, for taking one more step forward.
Becoming a bestseller was never my intent.
My intent was to help one person—someone who may have grown up in a challenging situation—find some solace in knowing they are not alone.
I have the internet now, right at my fingertips. I read people’s stories of their struggles and their lives. I’ve come to realize that while we may desire the fictional life with its happily-ever-after ending, life doesn’t always work that way.
And yet, when we look at ourselves today, we realize that who we are has been shaped by all the life events of yesterday.
I turn toward the shelf one last time.
I look into my own eyes on the cover of Falling Silence, bridging that distance across time.
And I whisper,
“Thank you for being you.”