A year of losing pieces

"When someone you love dies, and you’re not expecting it, you don’t lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time.."

John Irving

It was WiseOwl on the phone a year ago today "She is gone"

"How can that be...how can this be?"

A little hole opened.

Oh, there's all the usual dance to do of dealing with the shock, fetching this and sorting that, keeping busy, funeral procedure...it's the dance of the mourners.  It happens without a break in the pace.  Then it all stops.

She doesn't walk down the road in the morning anymore with the gaggle of children, no waves and smiles.

A little hole is big enough for a button.

I don't pop into Rainbows to see if she fancies coming to the Ranger sleepover.  The sleepover happened, she wasn't there. I'll never feel unhappy in that field but I did feel incredibly sad.

Coins could slip through that hole I carry alone in my pocket.

She'd have been so jealous about us all going off to Paris and would have been so happy that it was such a wonderful time.  She would have listened to me as I told her about the things that happened, I could have told her every piece of truth. 

The gaping holes in the umbrella, it can no longer protect me from the weather.

Remembrance without her, remembering.  After 'the last' Christmas carol service we sat together, WiseOwl, her and me and chattered away about nothing.  This year she wasn't there and we were all separated in church.  Scattered uniforms, shattered fellowship.

A hole in the ground big enough to plant a tree.

The last district meeting, the last drive home, the last conversation....I don't remember what was said.  It wasn't important, but now it matters and I can't remember it.

A hole big enough for a coffin.

The butterflies flew around the font as the sunlight came through the church window.  I don't recall the words of the funeral, I remember the butterflies.

"I should know enough about loss to realize that you never really stop missing someone-you just learn to live around the huge gaping hole of their absence.”
Alyson Noel