The room spins.
I drop to the floor. The black device leaves my hands as if it was a truth searing through my fingers. It had to be flung away. My husbands puzzled face stares. A calm had shattered the air we stand in. My breathing falters. Confusion seeps into my being.
I look up.
The voice at the end of the phone had been my eldest sister. It was 6 in the morning. Not a regular caller at any time, let alone 6am. Her voice dead. Matter of fact. There’s no time to chat.
How could there be no emotion evident in a voice, with news so horrid? I hear years later she refuses to call anyone with news ever again.
Flashback to the room, the first gut-wrenching sound, escapes my soul.
“Why?”
I asked as if my world depended on knowing the truth that was too unbearable to acknowledge anyway. But there was no logic. No answer.
Freak accidents are like that.
Like dropping off a cliff, 60 metres down to a hot hell of a mess we all went to, not knowing what would happen then, now or in that moment; we stood frozen in time.
My husband gathers me in his arms and says, ‘we need to go to your mum’. My heart leaves my body, broken. Life as we knew it ended.
*The memory is complicated and 25 years old but has softened on reflection.
2 responses to “Grief. Being told.”
Wow, what a snapshot capture in those words.
Powerful.
Poignant.
Emotional.
Engaging.
My heart feels.
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Peter Leske, it was a super interesting process… thank you for commenting on how you found the words 😊
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