Did I forget to post this? I wrote it as last year ended and I thought of the time I had been privileged to spend New Year’s Eve in your company, in a room full of people and laughter and music and hospitality. So I had written this and it may be somewhere on here, on featherhouse, but I have no energy to look for it. And it is worth repeating:
I remember you through the little things. When I put coffee grounds in a cafetiére I remember all those times in your kitchen when I made drinks for us and I always made the coffee strong enough for me and heated half a mug of cow milk for you in the microwave to add yours to. And sometimes you made me some concoction or other with turmeric grated into hot milk with a squeeze of vague sweetness and I drank it, willing you to get better as you drank yours.
And when I knit and drop a stitch I remember those last times of knitting and unpicking and then you holding the ball of wool while I raced to finish the Boy’s jumper for you so that nothing was left unfinished but everything is always unfinished. I made him try it on at the funeral and we found one hole but that made it perfect, a sign that you had been there. Every ball of wool reminds me as it unravels.
When I run – not every step but at least once per run I think of how you encouraged me and gave me your old gear, an acknowledgement that you no longer needed it. We never ran together – we thought that your cough would go and one day soon you would be able to join us on the towpath out of the city. You did in September when we ran in remembrance, with photos of you adorning the bushes and telling us where to turn round. Not the same. And now another place where I find you in the little things.