One foot and then another

There is sand in my toes and my hair is tangled around my face, hanging free, dripping salt water everywhere.

Again.

It feels like a kick in the guts, like someone walking over my grave, a shiver, a shudder. I am surrounded by ghosts of might-have-beens and if-things-had-been-different. They tug at my clothes and my hair, flitting out of sight when I look too closely.

***

You were meant to be here, helping with this.

You weren’t meant to die.

Everything is falling apart and you weren’t meant to be dead for this.

Do you hear me? You weren’t meant to die and leave us to deal with this alone.

***

One foot in front

and then the other.

Repeat, ad infinitum.

It won’t get easier, but it might get different.

I’m overwhelmed and unprepared for this.

Even though it’s been coming

for months

for years.

***

Things fly up and smack me in the face. I didn’t think of that. Why didn’t I ever notice that before?

The world falls down around my feet and I’m walking, crushing everything and I don’t want to be.

***

It’s cold outside, a veritable wasteland of winter. The rains come and everything turns green overnight, a stark change from the deathly yellow we saw last week. I want to sit in the sun and breathe in the smell of summer. I want to watch my children splash in water, to drip peach juice down my chin, to baby a garden through the hot weather.

I want warmth and growth and the smell of hot grass and sweat.

I want to lay on the grass and sob, to have the sun dry my tears as they leak from my eyes.

Instead, it’s cold and icy. The wind cuts through me like a knife, leaving me jagged.

And we are stuck inside again.