Winter of Discontent

The Funeral. The phone rang a day before Christmas a message I knew would come but would not like to hear. Mother had died and there was a great haste now before the festive season. Yet in my despair I picked up the phone and rang her number in the hope it had all been a dreadful mistake…any minute now she will answer be glad to hear my voice; and she would tell me I’m susceptible to cold and remember to wear a scarf. Fully awake I rushed to the airport, sorry fully booked till after Christmas. “Please if there is a cancellation ring me.” The phone didn’t ring. When I finally got there snow had covered flowers and her name was not yet carved on a stone. This emptiness, this hole in my heart, I knew it had to happen one day, but not now not ever. At her home they were busy dividing her things. No I didn’t want anything only her reading glasses, she had thought me how to read. A life had ended and for the first time in my life I knew how it felt like to be alone under a cold Nordic sky.