A Winters day

It is a cold Winter's day in Melbourne today, and paradoxically it's the first day of Summer in the USA. It is freezing, the wind chill factor is high, or low, whatever let's you know that it is just friggin' freezing; it's raining, the sky is grey, like a gentleman's flannel suit from Peter Jacksons; my hands and feet, although busy are cold, my nose is dripping and the silence of the room is punctuated by an occassional sniff.

It's a cold Winter's day in my heart today, and there is no paradox for that. The scene outside my french windows echos what I see in my heart. The bleak, the wet, the cold, the sadness, the heartache, the pain. An all too familiar journey has been placed in our laps, the journey of watching a love one face the ending of his time with us. It's familiar, and yet it is not something that you can say that you can get used to, because each time is more different from the last and yet it is so familar. In this instance, I am on the outside looking in, watching him slowly readying himself, watching his family, the people I love, live a life of trying to be there, to support, to do the best, find another thing that will help, bring comfort, relieve the pain, and yet I know, from my own experience, that there is somewhere, that you would so much rather be, that you wish there was someone who you could just dump all this on, and say 'Hey you do this. I'm not doing this anymore' because if you hand it over to someone else, it's not real anymore, it's not going to happen, the inevitable WILL NOT be the inevitable; alas a trick our mind and soul plays on ourselves.

I feel helpless to help them, because all I can offer is my arms for a hug, my ears to listen, but regardless of my huge vocabularly, I know there are no words that I am going to say that will bring them the peace or understanding that they so desperately seek. I know because I have been on their journey twice. No one can say anything to you that will bring you peace or comfort, and at times you, the bereved, become the one offering console to those around you, NOW that is a paradox, a paradox you really don't need or really have the energy for, but a paradox that rears it's serpent's head at a time like this.

I cry, warm salty tears run down my face and I don't even realise they are there until I feel them tickle my cheek and I realise that I am remembering times past when we were sharing happy, joyful times, and realising that those times will never be again. That what I remember, the memories, the laughs, will have to be spoken about and laughed about, cried about, so they remain in the present, so they are never forgotten and those who come later, will know the joy of being part of this family.

It's a cold Winter's day in Melbourne. It's a cold Winter's day in my heart.