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.