My son asked why I never sing in the car anymore

Dear Delyara, Before my husband died, I sang constantly in the car. Badly, loudly, shamelessly. He used to turn the radio up just to hear whether I would become even louder. Our son was six when he died and is twelve now. Today, on the way home from football practice, an old song came on. My son looked at me and said, “You used to sing this one.” I said I still knew it. He asked, “Then why don’t you?” I had no answer I could give a child at a red light. I stopped singing after the funeral because music made memory too immediate. One song became our wedding. Another became a road trip. Another became the kitchen on a Sunday morning. Eventually, silence was easier, and six years passed. My son turned the volume up. He sang the chorus badly on purpose, the way his father did. I laughed, then one line came out of me before I could stop it. My voice cracked. My son kept singing. By the second chorus, I joined him. I cried through half the song, which made him uncomfortable, but neither of us turned it off. Tonight, he told his mother’s sister that I sang in the car again. I had not realized my silence had become part of his childhood too.