I am afraid of losing what I have already valued.
Christmas works like glue, it keeps us all sticking together.
After a lifetime's independence– yes, selfish independence as my daughter would rightly claim – I am terrified of being reduced to childhood once more, to helplessness, to seas of confusion from which the cruel lucid intervals poke up like rock shoals.
Things don't matter, people do
Let her be with her memories. Better that than be aware of this reality.
I've grieved enough for his life cut short and for mine for running on for so long with so little in it. It's weakness now, but I suppose I am crying out of a general sense of loss. Maybe I am mourning for the human condition.