She wakes up and her bed is double again. Next to her could fit her whole family but she has it all to herself and that makes her sad. Her husband is at work because he works hard and has to leave early. So she gets out of her bed and walks to the next room. The room is empty as it has been for quite some time now. It smells fresh because she cleaned it again yesterday. She wants it to look perfect but it’s not because it is empty. She walks to the closet and opens it. Picks up an old pillow that still smells of him and takes a sniff. She misses him and he knows. Her son left her so soon but he’ll be back. Christmas is just around the corner.

Normally she would go and wake up her other son, the younger one. But he is gone as well. She puts the pillow back and walks to the other room. Everything is clean but nothing is tidy. She swears she will throw all these old car magazines away tomorrow. She’s had enough. But she misses him also and throwing the magazines away would make her miss him more.

She walks out of the room and goes to make her some coffee. The coffee that she will drink alone but will never finish because she has things to do. As soon as the caffeine from the first few sips is in her system she will leave the mug on the table and get ready. She has to clean up because it is vacuuming day today. She will get dressed and go to pick up some groceries. When she’ll get back she’ll start yelling because nobody helped her bring the stuff upstairs and now her arms hurt.

She will do the cleaning and prepare lunch for her husband. Then the phone will ring. It’s her younger son wishing her a happy birthday. Has the other one forgotten?

She cleans up the mug which still has coffee in it, watches her favourite show on TV and is thinking about fixing something for dinner. They’re both too full from lunch. So what? Maybe they won’t have dinner tonight.

She gets ready to go to bed.

The phone rings again.

“Happy Birthday ma!”

She tells me she’s holding my pillow. I know she’s crying, her voice is breaking.

“I’m sorry ma, I’ll be there soon. I miss you. I love you.”

She falls asleep knowing her family will be whole again in 17 days. She’s still holding her son’s pillow.

I’m holding hers as I fall asleep. I remember that I didn’t clean my mug today, it still has coffee in it.

Related posts:
on the train back from training (part 1; still on my afternoon coffee buzz)
next time I’ll have that coffee and skip the misery
on the train back from training (part 3; coffee buzz over, in need of a bed)
give me the coffee and noone gets hurt
i’m becoming an insomniac and how to make your own Greek Frappé coffee

Written by Colin Brooks on 30.11.05 at 11:27 pm.