A Borrowed Silence

Every breath we take is borrowed from a silence that will one day reclaim it.

That thought hit me hard the first time it crossed my mind. Life is fragile, fleeting, and deeply temporary. We walk around as if the clock will never run out, but the truth is we’re all living on borrowed time. Each inhale is a gift, each exhale a debt paid back.

I’ve stood in rooms filled with the remnants of lives — estates where the laughter has gone quiet, where the voices that once filled the halls have returned to silence. What’s left behind are tokens: photographs, worn chairs, handwritten notes, treasures and trinkets. They whisper stories, but they also remind me of the silence that always waits its turn.

Here’s the catch: the silence isn’t our enemy. It’s our teacher. It reminds us to breathe deeper, to love harder, to show up fully in the moments we still have. When you know your breath is borrowed, you stop wasting it on empty arguments and start spending it on things that matter: telling people you love them, passing down your wisdom, laughing until your ribs hurt, praying with your whole chest, living your life in a way that leaves fingerprints on more than just objects.

I often tell people I’m a steward of the story — but maybe I’m also a steward of the breath. If I’m borrowing it, I want to use it well before I hand it back. I want my words to plant shade, my actions to echo in rooms I’ll never walk into, my life to mean more than the silence that follows me.

So the question isn’t whether silence will reclaim our breath. It’s what we’ll do with the time between the inhale and the exhale.

Because legacy, dignity, love, and purpose — they’re all carried in the breath we spend right now.