Last night, while I was spending the entire night rearranging my office, sorting through the quiet chaos of things, memories, and forgotten fragments of myself. Fourteen endless hours passed in rushing to clean the battlefield of my office, in search for a clearer mind and an improved focus, each object touched and moved felt like peeling back layers of myself, uncovering a forgotten essence beneath the cluttered debris of life.
My window had stayed gently open all night, just slightly, because of the heat of all the movements I made insight, it got hot and I needed some more air to breath properly. But what I did not know in that very moment was that it was also like a hesitant invitation to the outside world, as if my soul anticipated something my mind could not yet grasp.
Around 7:30 a.m., as the morning arrived and I still didn’t finish to get things sorted out, an unexpected silence caught me. Not a mere quietness of dawn, not the gentle hush that softly announces the arrival of morning, but a silence far deeper. A silence so profound it felt as if time itself had paused, suspended, breathless.
I stood frozen, unable to move, as if my own heartbeat had stopped in reverence to something unseen. Outside, the birds, nature’s eternal poets and messengers, who tirelessly greet each morning with songs, were utterly silent. Not something gradual, but a spontaneous and drastic pause. It was as if the world itself had paused, sensing something vast, powerful, and deeply sacred.
I stopped in that precise moment because sometimes nature speaks louder in silence. History whispers of moments like these, moments where nature halts to acknowledge something profound. Throughout the ages, people have recorded how birds cease their singing, how animals sense the imminent arrival of earthquakes, storms, or monumental change. In these fleeting moments, nature’s silence becomes its loudest voice, a voice that urges us to listen deeply. As if it gives instructions, to save those who listen.
In that eerie stillness, my heart raced with an unknown anticipation. I felt vulnerable, open, connected in some inexplicable way to something larger than myself, larger than the room around me, larger even than the sky outside my window. It was as though I had briefly touched the pulse of the universe, its heartbeat aligning momentarily with mine.
I stood listening, not knowing what I awaited. It was frightening, overwhelming even, yet I couldn’t turn away from the profound beauty of this silence. It felt as if the earth itself had held its breath in gentle mourning or quiet reverence, awaiting news that had not yet reached my ears but had already touched my soul.
I expected everything at that moment.
But nothing happened.
And after a while, the birds as well continued their songs.
It wasn’t until hours later, in the golden glow of afternoon, that I learned, Pope Francis had died precisely at 7:35 this morning, on a sacred day like Easter Monday, on a year where the Orthodox and the Catholics celebrate Easter at the same very moment, which rarely happens, and in times of global turmoil, division and shifting powers… it’s at this very moment when my room had become an altar of stillness. The realization flooded through me, electric and shivering, filling my veins with awe and humility. Goosebumps covered my skin and for now I understood: in that sacred moment, I had unknowingly become a silent witness to a profound farewell.
The Pope, whose life was one of compassion, humility, and boundless love, departed this world at a moment when nature itself stood quietly in tribute, in respect. And I, without intention, had felt it, had been part of it. My soul had known before my mind did, had recognized a great spirit passing, even if my conscious mind had yet to comprehend.
Today, I learned again the great truth of our existence: we are bound together, intricately, inexplicably connected by threads invisible yet tangible. Nature understands this and whispers its knowledge to those who pause and listen.
This morning, the birds ceased their singing, the wind held its breath, and the world paused in gentle reverence. And within that profound stillness, I too became silent, sensing, feeling deeply that at moments like these, everything truly is connected, everything matters.
And I know there are those who will dismiss it. Who will say it was just coincidence. But I know what I felt. I know the sacred hush of a passing when it brushes your life for a single breath and leaves you changed.
And I will carry that morning with me. Always. A quiet echo in my bones. A moment when the birds bowed their heads, and my soul, even without knowing why, stood still beside them.
Because the universe whispers quietly, and if we choose to listen, we can hear its profound, heartbreaking beauty.
