[A PROSE] The Day She Took the Light With Her... September 1944 - May 2024

“It always looks like rain, but it never rains.”

Since my mother passed, time has felt different. It hasn’t stopped entirely, but it has stretched thin, as though it lost its weight. The months fall away like loose pages, and suddenly, everyone is celebrating again — candles flickering, cakes cut into neat slices, balloons bobbing on ribbons.

I stand to the side, smiling because I know they're right to celebrate — life should be marked — but inside, I roll my eyes, because to me, life feels faded, stretched, and colourless.

My brother’s birthday came a few days ago. I sent my wishes at the stroke of midnight, called him in the morning, said all the right things. But the day itself felt strange, unreal, like something that had happened a very long time ago. It was as if I were speaking across water to a shore I could barely see.

Then my husband's birthday followed — a party he had wanted, a gathering he deserved — and again I smiled, took pictures, nodded, played my part. But inside, I was counting the hours, whispering to myself, 'Lord, this will be the longest day.'

Grief, for me, is not forgetting. It is not bitterness. It is not coldness. It is standing in the noise and colour of the world and feeling it skim past you like wind against glass. It's showing up because you have to, because it’s expected, even when you have already escaped in spirit.

You cannot explain it. You cannot talk about it. People think grief is a season, a passing storm, something you ought to outgrow. They do not know — cannot know — how deep the love was. They do not realise that this emptiness is now stitched into the fabric of your days.

Once they have said 'I'm sorry for your loss', the world moves on — brisk, efficient, like standing in a queue at a post office. Next!

But you — you are left catching your breath every morning, waking into a life that no longer fits the way it once did.

If you’d like to read where this journey began, find the link below.

https://www.hiddenhourtales.com/post/hold-on-for-as-long-as-you-can