Ripples of an event in time

Josie woke to the alarm. It still seemed dark. As dark as every day, where the invisible black ink clouded her, shrouded her, infringing into her very being and seeping through her emotions. She moved over to hit the snooze button and her dozing mind brought her back to the same thought. The one she woke to every day. It's never going to be the same. They're not here. If only she could change things.

Groaning, she picked up the phone and squinted at the two smiling faces on the screen. It was sunshine and they were happy. They stood close together, the old lady’s head slightly resting on the old man’s shoulder, grey hair ruffling in an unseen breeze. The intimacy of their long relationship was obvious in this simple freeze frame. 58 years. 58 years of adventure, family, professions, arguments, retirement and death.

Knowing that focusing on them for too long would only bring the tears welling back up, Josie pushed the screen face down and made the choice to get up and out into the world. The world that they were no longer a part of. It had been a year and she had no idea how long it would be before she would stop feeling the ripples of that one event that had changed her life forever. That had made her more acutely aware of the need to know that there was an eternity, that there was a God and there was a hope. She sure didn't feel like it a lot of the time and she knew she was not the only one. Questions that needed answers but not always answers to be found.

Slipping off the old worn vest that used to be his and slipping on the grey slippers that used to be hers, she looked around the room to see more reminders. This was only the bedroom but there were clothes she had not been able to throw away - the smell of the washing detergent fading faster than the memories it evoked. She opened a drawer to see a pair of small leather shoes, a size smaller than her own feet. They were not there to be worn, but to be touched, held to her face and embraced. Another drawer revealed a white bag, decorated with flowers. Really not her style and probably would never be used but inside was a half-eaten packet of Polos and a Werthers Original she had found somewhere in pocket of a coat, now given to charity.

Josie put on her own clothes. Nowadays, she didn't care much what she wore as long as it vaguely matched and wasn't too crumpled. Make up had gone. What was the point when Zoom meetings added at least 10 years to your real age, even without the sadness that aged. Sometimes she tried smiling in public, and crying in private.

Moving to the bathroom, she picked up a blue, china seahorse that used to be a light pull. Touching it fondly and placing it carefully back where she had found it, she tried to remember the last time it had been used for its proper purpose. Their house was nearly ready to sell now. It had taken a year to renovate it, not an easy task in a pandemic lockdown when travel and family meetings were not allowed. Did they know how difficult it was to arrange painting and gardening sessions to avoid being with your own sisters and brother? Moving on wasn't going to be easy. How do you sell memories? How do you pack things that used to be so personal and so alive to them, into boxes that might never see the light of day again?

An hour of the day had passed, maybe less, the watch often forgotten now as time had taken on a less important role in her life. The ripples of the stone that had hit the water were still impacting on her health, her well being and her hope. She stepped on something soft that yowled and made her jump. A black cat. Her mother's cat picked up from an animal rescue centre to keep her company. Rescued again by Josie on her mother and father's death. Did the cat know it had used up three lives already? Thankfully, it had settled and now brought Josie the same comfort her mother had felt when she had first seen it in the 'We love Cats' home. Maybe black cats weren't that unlucky after all.

The morning news stated the same statistics. A year on and more people affected daily. It wasn’t just her that woke to find loved ones gone. She wasn’t alone in her feelings but she had already talked to everybody about it once, twice, probably more than that. They moved on. She didn’t. She knew it was time to get that half empty glass to turn into a half full glass and she really thought she was trying. She thought up projects for her garden – a new bench with a little plaque giving their names Douglas and Joyce so she could remember them. She had a new hobby – beekeeping. The large hive was called Douglas and the small hive was Joyce. One of the previously unnamed chickens had been rechristened Joyce. No Douglas for obvious reasons! Why did everything in life hinge around them? Was she trying to keep them alive? For who? For what purpose? They would have been happy to go. At 86 and well past their prime, they were content. It was just the way it had happened that Josie wished she could have changed.

Covid was a game changer that nobody was ready for. Not the hospitals, not the doctors, least of all the government. And she felt the consequences of all the previously unmade decisions. The stroke that led to her mother being in a Covid hospital before tests were available, blessed her also with a virus. Together in life, she unknowingly passed it on to her beloved husband. How could she have known what would happen? Nobody could have. Her father’s death on 13^th April, followed by hers on 14^th April shocked the family and everyone was still trying to get over it.

Books on grief, podcasts, even a grief counsellor had all been and gone and life was getting better. But it wasn’t over yet. The death toll still rose and she listened to the news with an aching heart, knowing how those 435 families felt today, how their lives had just changed. That every one of those lost had a story to tell. A worthwhile story.

In the ‘real’ world which felt more like the ‘unreal’ to Josie, the pandemic world was coming to a close, or so it seemed. You could now recognize a smile under a mask by looking at a persons eyes, a wide berth was not the size of a car parking space and you knew without a shadow of a doubt when 20 seconds was up. The jab as it had affectionately become known was bringing hope and the sound of a plane’s engines overhead no longer took you by surprise. Normality was returning to the world. But what was normal for Josie? She had yet to discover what that would look like for her.   Moving on took longer than expected. She wondered how long.

Closing the front door behind her, she stepped past the plant pots with the tulips emerging into life. Not her tulips but salvaged from the tiny London garden she had looked after for her mother, creating a haven of colour the size of a postage stamp. But it had made her mother smile and that had made her father smile. She remembered their happy faces and decided to keep them that way. In her mind. For today. And every day.

Josie smiled.