A Warm Body

April 10, 2020 2:15 a.m.

When I fell in love with Leo, I knew he wouldn't be in my life forever, but I jumped headlong into it anyway, thinking the memory of our love would be worth the heartache. Now, I'm not so sure.

It's been a couple of months since we said our good-byes and I'm still waking at two a.m. every morning. I read on the internet that grief does that to people, makes us wake at weird times. It's normal. Really? Well, I've always found being told I'm normal is something of a cold comfort. I mean, who wants to be told they're nothing special?

If it weren't for this diary, I'd go mad. "You are mad!" I can hear Mum shouting. Why, even now, must she interrupt me? She used to hate it when I was "holed up” in my bedroom “scribbling daft thoughts." That's what she used to say to me. That and lots of other horrid things. "Bloody hell, Irene, get off your fat arse and do something useful instead of writing in that damn diary." Just thinking about it I can feel my blood pressure going up. I need a cup of tea...

3:05 a.m.

That's better. I've always considered a cup of tea to be the perfect friend. You can always rely on it to make you feel better.

When Leo went, the first thing I did was put the kettle on. I remember watching the steam curling up from the spout and thinking, I’ll never understand why anyone needs to learn to meditate when they can just sit and watch a kettle boil. It trains the mind to patience. And at the end of it you get a lovely, hot drink.

Wrapping my hands around a cup of tea, I've always thought it was just like wrapping my hands around a tiny warm body. I remember saying that to Mum, when I was little, and we were just home from the vet. I said, “I don’t need a pet, Mum, because I’ve got a cup of tea.”

I told her my warm body theory and she looked at me like I had a screw loose. In fact, I'm pretty sure she said, "You've got a screw loose, Irene!"

Fancy telling a wee kiddie that when she's trying to make you feel better. It was her I was thinking of. I never even liked Samson. A great, dirty grey Persian mix, with matted lumps of hair around his rear end, who used to scratch me whenever I tried to pick him up. Mum was always cooing over him then slapping him off the counter and complaining about the cost of feeding him.

When he got sick and needed veterinary care, well, I realize now, that was the excuse she needed to get rid of him. "He needs an operation," the vet said. "If you can't afford it, we'll have to put him down." At the time, I thought he meant set him on the floor. It made no sense to me.

We left Samson there at the vet's and went home, and the whole time we were walking Mum was crying. Not sobbing. Just snivelling. She never did that, so I knew something was wrong. When I tried to take her hand, she said, "Get off!"

Oh, why am I writing about that? "Keep that up Irene and you'll put yourself off your tea." Thank heavens for Brenda. She's always got something sensible to say. Sometimes, I wonder how many other people have a friend as good as Brenda. Naturally, she's done her best to help me since Leo went, but even she doesn't really understand the loss. I don't suppose someone who has always been a spirit can appreciate the loss of a warm body.

4:03 a.m.

I finished my tea and I held the cup until all the warmth was gone. Until it was stone cold. It felt just like a little dead thing in my hands. I wondered about writing a poem about it. Truth be told, I did start writing a poem about it, but it just wouldn’t flow the way I wanted it to. I’ll go back to it. Right now, I need to think about Leo.

5:35 a.m.

Thinking about Leo made me want to get out all the poems I ever wrote about him. Of course, I cried and cried. I’ve got a nasty headache now. I kind of wish I hadn’t done it. That could be the story of my life: She does something she regrets, cries and cries, and then kind of wishes she hadn’t done it.

But what kind of a life would that be?

Imagine never heeding your true self. Never being fully alive, because you were too scared to be who you were created to be.

I love the idea of destiny. It’s so powerful. Everything I’ve ever done I did because I was destined for it. I believe that. I don’t want to be an ordinary person who lives according to everyone else’s rules. Leo understood that. I know he did. That’s one of the reasons I loved him so much.

Shortly after Leo and I were parted, Mum caught me in my room crying. She badgered me to tell her what was wrong. I said I loved Leo, and I missed him. She laughed. Worse, she said, “You don’t know what love is, you daft cunt!”

It was the last thing she ever said to me. I made sure of that.

Oh, this damn headache.

6:15 a.m.

I'm just back from the basement. I needed to have a word with Mum. She’s been on my mind too much of late. I told her to stop barging into my thoughts when I’m trying to concentrate on Leo. I won’t have it. I told her that. I told her to leave me alone and let me sleep. Leave me to my grieving.

Do you know what she did? She laughed. She laughed and laughed. Despite forty-seven stab wounds, one for every one of my birthdays, and a coffin made of concrete, she laughed. She always laughed when I tried to fight back.

When I came back upstairs and talked to Brenda about it she told me, again, I’d have to get used to it. She said, “Irene, your mum could be a million miles away and you’d still hear her. Don’t worry about it. Make yourself a cup of tea. Settle yourself down.”

6:47 a.m.

That’s better. I've got a lovely mug of tea, a little warm body, and the sun is coming up. Oh! It's streaming through the bars of Leo’s cage. His little red hamster wheel is infused with a peachy pink light. It’s like a tiny sun is shining where his little soul used to play...I like the sound of that. It's got a nice ring to it.

“What do you think, Brenda? Does Leo’s wheel look like a tiny sun?” 

Brenda says it does. She thinks I should write a poem.