One year on

Mum, it’s been a year. I think about you every day. Wake, and you’ve been within my nightscape. 

I miss you so much.  My surprise at your absence is there when I least expect it: when I want to tell you I’ve had my hair done or find myself alone in an empty house and fancy a chat. Morning tea together when I’d visit. I miss being able to hear your thoughts. Ask your views. Know how you are. Who you are. Who I am. 

I go to reach out, then stop, in the nanosecond beyond. 

I miss your laugh, your smile, your wisdom and your presence. I miss your love and reassurance. I miss the meaning that your existence gave mine. What was all this *for*? So much pain along the way. 

Now, I am left fluttering, because pins that held down the edges of my life have gone missing. 

I fly, of course, in the best ways I can: skylark to dodo, eagle to bee, feeling my way in a field of clouds. 

I realise, this is it. Not the straight line to something else that I thought it was. Directionless, circuitous, so many crossroads. 

I seek to engage with the texture of the everyday. ‘Play forward’, as you would say.

From time to time a white feather crosses my path.