Without You

The tea kettle whistled. I brewed a cup of tea and replayed in my mind the events of the day, yesterday now.

“Will you be okay?” She took my hand and asked to be forgiven for leaving me alone. “Who will do your wash? Who will make your Saturday supper? Who will make the reservations for the summer cottage at the lake? You must go to the lake. You love it out on the water in your little boat, pretending to fish.”

And like that she was gone. Like blowing out a candle. I held her hand. The sounds of the machinery, the miracles of modern science, moaned and groaned as if lamenting my loss. I sat there in the dimly lit room alone with her for awhile, all sterile and antiseptic, all orderly and chaotic. Someone came in, put their hand on my shoulder and whispered how sorry they were for my loss.

Outside the air bit in to my face, stinging with its cold as I walked to my car, I think I cried, I must have cried. The snow began to fall as I drove home. I wanted to be angry, mad at someone? I yelled at god as I drove home defying him to give me his best shot, called him a coward. I hope he realizes that it was all said in a moment of grief, of anguish, of pain, of loss and suffering. He answered with a snowfall, another snowfall, a fresh snow, a cleansing snow with the air cold and refreshing and quiet. That snowfall quiet.

The flashing lights of a snowplow brought me back to the morning, my cup of tea still warm in my hands as the cat nuzzled my leg.

She didn't come home last night.