Light

I find myself craving quiet and time to sit and just be. And I don't have it. When Kathleen's up I'm a-going with her. And when she sleeps I work. But tonight, I'm taking a break, because I need it, because my brain is useless. I'm sitting in my chair in the living room—the chair I sat in with Henry, the chair I sat in with Kathleen, the chair I have sat in very little over the past several months. I'm sitting in the gentle glow of Henry's lamp and the candle I lit for him. 

The candle was a gift from my cousin's mother-in-law. I see her at Thanksgiving, but don't know her particularly well. But she bought be this candle, a white candle in a little jar, for me to light for Henry. She gave me one last year and another this year. I like having a candle just for Henry. I'm touched by her gesture. 

So I have his candle lit in front of his picture:

and I'm sitting and trying to deal with these waves that keep coming over me. Two years . . . two years . . . two years . . .  

I find my self close to or in tears often these days. It has not been like this for a while. I had forgotten how the waves could sweep over me, again and again and again. How the tears well up and subside and well up some more. How it feels to be teetering on the edge of holding it together. 

I had been doing okay. And then December.