We are having a memorial this weekend to finally inter his ashes - he's been on the shelf and in the shed for 20 years, poor guy! It's funny, I don't miss him constantly, it's not like a pain or an ache, but more like a sensitive muscle that just twinges every now and then if I think about it or move the wrong way...
He would have been a great Granddad. He would have been a menace on Facebook.
Anyway, in the spirit of remembrance, here's an unfinished piece I wrote a couple of years back about the day he died.
The
end of the chapter
It’s winter. The air in her bedroom is cold, but R is
warm, sandwiched between several layers of duvet and the womb of her waterbed
(don’t hassle her, it’s the ‘90s, they were cool then). It’s morning, early, but not too early, quiet
but for the click-click-click of the dog’s claws on the wooden floor of the
hallway. He wants to go outside and R
can hear him but she doesn’t move just yet.
It’s the last Friday of the school holidays (dogs have no respect for
weekends and holidays) so she’s savouring her lie-in. One arm snakes out from beneath the covers to
grab her current bedroom book (she has three on the go – one for the bedroom,
one for the living room and one for the bathroom) and flick on the bedside
light. She is quickly drawn back into the
world she reluctantly left the previous night, when her eyelids could no longer
resist the beckoning advances of her cheeks.
