FUNERAL
I was woken up early by a phone call from my Other Uncle. My grandmother was dead. I pictured her sheltering me and my sister under her raincoat when there was a sudden hailstorm when we were little. I pictured her making coffee and eggs for my sister and hot goat’s milk and sugée biscuits for me, I pictured her rubbing my feet. I cried, surprised at my own soft, limp body. She was still at home where she had died, and if I wanted to see her before the funeral directors picked her up, I had to go with my mother now. It was tempting to cry, but there was a kernel of deep privacy within me, telling me that if I wanted a proper farewell, then I needed to be alone. I needed no-one to be watching me, comforting me, reacting to me, but for my confrontation with this loss to be unfiltered. I don’t think that I fully understood then anything beyond the impulse for privacy, or that I knew the size of the experience I seemed to be preparing for. ...
