Restoration

Story:

I lost my voice the day my father died. Not literally — the cords still worked, the breath still flowed. But something inside me collapsed. Singing felt like lying.

He was the one who taught me how to sing. Not through lessons, but through living. His voice was always present: humming while fixing things, whistling from the kitchen, crooning lullabies half off-key. My first memory of music is him holding me in his arms, swaying back and forth to a Sam Cooke record, whispering, “You’ve got music in you, baby.”

But when the silence came — the hospital silence, the funeral silence, the silence of empty rooms where his laughter used to live — that music disappeared.

I canceled every gig. Shut the lid of the piano like it had betrayed me. I couldn’t bear to sing over grief. Every note sounded hollow.

Worse, every lyric felt false. Hope? Joy? Faith? My voice refused.

Months passed. Friends left well-meaning voicemails. My vocal coach texted, “The world needs your voice again.” But I ignored them all. My heart was broken, and my voice was buried beneath it.

Then, one cold November morning, my grandmother called.

“I need help with the church choir. Christmas is coming.”

I nearly said no. But something in her voice — tired, small — made me hesitate.

“I’m not ready,” I whispered.

“None of us ever are,” she replied. “That’s what faith is. You sing into readiness. Not after it.”

I agreed to help — just help — with rehearsals.

The church smelled like old wood and memories. The piano was slightly out of tune. The choir was out of sync. But they were trying. And somehow, that was enough.

One girl — maybe twelve years old — had a voice like cracked glass. Every note was on the verge of breaking. But her eyes sparkled every time she sang.

“You remind me of someone,” I told her.

She smiled shyly. “My dad says I sound like my grandpa when I sing. He died last year.”

My chest tightened. I looked down. She reached out and touched my hand.

“It still hurts,” she said. “But sometimes I feel him when I sing. Like he’s right next to me.”

That night, I sat at the church piano alone. Just pressing keys. Slowly. Gently. One chord. Then another. Then a verse — unfinished, unplanned.

🎵I lost the sound I used to know,

When life grew quiet, soft, and low.

But now I hear him in the space,

Where silence used to take his place.

🎵

I wept.

But the melody came back — not bright and loud, but gentle. Fragile. Like a newborn bird finding its breath.

I wrote a song called "Restoration." Not about forgetting grief — but about singing with it.

Christmas Eve. Candlelight service. I sat in the last pew, planning to just listen. But halfway through, the choir director handed me the mic.

“We added your song to the set list,” he said.

I shook my head. “I can’t.”

The young girl stepped forward. “Sing it with me?”

Her hand reached out like a lifeline.

I nodded.

We sang it together, line by line — her young, trembling voice carrying mine like wind under broken wings.

And somehow, my father was there. In the warmth. In the notes. In the part of me I thought I’d lost forever.

Since that night, I’ve learned something I never understood before:

Healing doesn't mean returning to who you were.

It means becoming someone new — shaped, but not shattered. Broken, but not buried.

Now, when I sing, I feel the golden cracks. The places where pain reshaped me. And I don’t hide them.I sing because of them.

shohel rana