To speak or not to speak…

So I’ve been thinking a lot about “right speech,” and its relationship to what’s been going on in my life and what I should tell people about it (including you, dear blog readers).  My friend Judy turned me on to a series of talks about Right Speech practice at Dharma Seed, and I guess it’s been in the background, simmering, for many months now.

The abbreviated version: a brief illness and death in the family.

The questions:

1. If during all this, it was the wrong time to talk about how to make hospitals, not to mention our practices around death and funerals, more life-affirming and sustainable, when was the right time? Why/how did I miss it?  Or does that come later?
2. I’ve limited who I’ve told about it, with only a few beyond the circle of friends and family that knew the deceased. Was this a thing I should share with my students?  All of them, or just a few as it has come up organically?
3. I’m still not sure the blog is the right place to talk more about this.  How much of the story should I tell here?  How relevant is it?  If I can’t find the energy to make it relevant, do I put more here just because it’s so hard to write/think about much else now?

I think that silence was the right choice.  My voice hasn’t really come back yet, but I didn’t want to stay quiet here for too much longer.