More than half my life

Thirty years ago, I was already an adult. I had lived away from home and thought I knew something about life. But I had no idea little I knew. I found out, with a crushing blow, a never fully-healed blow, on this day in 1984 when I heard that my mother had died in the night. Cancer - yes, weak - yes, but still full of strong hope and prayer and love. We had no idea, my sisters and I, how this could have happened so suddenly, how there could be so brutally little warning. Thoughts of the shortening of her suffering were scant consolation in that cruel winter. Now - on just such a day of icy sun - I have the leisure to look back and consider how the scars have grown over. But  - when I think of my children, and the smallness of our Christmas - they are still there. I can only try and copy the warmth of her affection, and value my survival.

Gabriel Bergonzi, 1938-1984. 

THE END IN VIEW

The morning mirror shows a gaunt visage, a man twenty years older than I ever feared I’d be, whilst icy wind whistles past the unlit glass behind my head, and children fretfully clatter over their breakfasts below – Medicine taken? PE kits remembered? Lunchboxes clean? A hundred cares upon cares, and a snoring form dozes before her worries coalesce. Let her sleep.

And on this morning, the cold grips and death seems close enough to put out your hand and stroke.

And yet – thirty lifetimes back, when cold was unvitiated by gas and dark by electricity, when my age was enough to be really dead, and the kids would be at work (none of this endless learning), and you had one blanket or a bit of fur and the fire on your face would turn your back to ice – then a bit of straw was enough, and a stable a sufficient shelter and yet – and YET – the light was born.

And the light will be back.