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Mum died.

I started writing a blog years ago when it was new and edgy. I wrote about teaching and family life and home-based care and my studies and my garden and my interest in words.
Then I got a full time job and got too busy to have thoughts, much less write them down.
Then I saw this BlogJune thing, and thought: I used to blog. I could do that.
So I signed up.

But, faced with a page all I can think is that Mum died.

Mum was dad's caregiver, so now we're taking turns of a week or so each to come down here and care for dad. And grieve alongside him. And have too much time to think.

It's coming up six weeks since mum died.
The first week was easy. It was a shock that she died at all (she was supposed to get better), and I knew I'd end up being the one to write and deliver the retrospective talk at the funeral, so I had to keep myself together to be able to speak in public. So I stayed aloof.
Then, after the funeral, and after all the visitors went home, it was just me and dad (I did the first week after that), to sit and be quiet together, and be shocked by the fact that Mum died.

Week three I was back at work, and that was hard.

I felt like my grief was a rather quiet relative who had come to stay with me, and hovered behind my left shoulder. I'd be in the middle of a conversation, and I'd suddenly remember Grief was standing there, and I'd say: oh, I'm so sorry, have you met Grief? she's staying with me for a while.

The first thing almost everyone said when they saw me was variations of "I'm sorry for your loss". That was hard, but it would have been a whole lot harder if they'd not mentioned it. So I'm glad that's the culture there.

The next two weeks the quiet relative wasn't hovering so near, or present so often. But she would pop up unexpectedly from time to time. I learned to say: I'm carrying my mum a bit heavily today. That was ok.

This is week six, and I'm back with dad. We need to sort out coats and warm jumpers tomorrow, to give away now that it is Winter and people will want them. I want the memory of Mum to keep other people warm. I hope Dad will be comforted by that thought too.