It's bitter cold outside this morning. The wind is whipping glittering snow through the air like fresh powder. Yet I'm content to sit, coffee cup to my left and newspaper in a careless heap to my right. My mother is reading a manuscript on alzheimer's and Jim is curled up in the armchair with my labtop transferring music.
Everything about this moment reeks of familiarity. From the rerun's playing on the battered tube television, to the washing mashine clanking in the laundry room. The snowclad birch trees outside the living room window look the same as they have every winter for the past 15 years. Mom's in tattered moccasin's and the cat is curled up over the heat vent. I still expect the door to open in a blast of cold air and my Dad to stomp in after plowing the driveway. I don't think I'll ever lose that feeling. That sense that he's just outside.
The house is so empty without him. When do you start to heal? There is no way to fill this void but I feel like something is starting to change. I'm starting to learn how to endure.
