A first draft based on this week’s writing challenge at http://wordpress.com/read/post/id/489937/66914/

I started a new job

the week before my mother died.

I had an hour long drive each way

a full day at work, a young family  

who needed my attention in the evening.

It didn’t leave much time to grieve.

My lunchtime breaks

were usually taken in busy cafes.

Once I tried to drive instead,

picked up coffee and sandwiches

And sought a quiet place to think, or cry

but it wasn’t the right way to grieve.

A notebook, sitting

among others on a bookshop  shelf

called to me one day. It was black

with a diamond-embossed cover, a  black ribbon

to mark the page, a black elastic to keep it closed

the perfect place to store my grief.

On the days I couldn’t keep it in

I took the book out while I ate,

wrote with long black hair to hide my face,

her birthday, my birthday and all the days

that I could mark only silently

in my little book of silent grief.

I have many notebooks filled with words

But that one is my mother’s preserve

It helped turn painful memories

Into some kind of remembrance

as I came to terms with sudden loss.

Manageable; bite-sized; lunchtime grief.