Monday, it’s dawning, like landing, like setting down. Re-entering. The meeting, vicar and sister, resurgent urgent memories.  Of Mum now gone, now over. 

After, to her old home, visited often but no longer. Crushing grief, sobbing at the steering wheel, final footsteps of piercing memory slowly scream away.

Friday, the morning, the arrival, the departure. The funeral solemnity, the hymn I won’t sing. The descant ridiculous, the well toned words, the compressed eulogy , decades into seconds, choke back tears. The commitment, too much fuss and god. Get on with it she’d have said, my Mum. 

GMJ February, 2019