Compassion, Autumn 2020

Autumn 2020 - Compassion | www.tcf.org.uk 20 “I’m not reading it mum. I am it. I am your thoughts, your fears your happiness and your tears. Mum!!!!!! I wrote a poem!!!!” Well done son. I’ve just thought about how you used to peer over my shoulder as I was working. Writing or typing, you always wanted to see what I was doing. Now I imagine you peering over my shoulder again and wonder whether I’d get the same response…. ’boring mum, I’m off to play’. “You can still be a bit boring.” Thanks! I miss our banter James. “And what do you call this then?” Ok. Point taken. “So August eh?” Yes. August. 6 years son. 6 whole years. How has my heart held this weight for 6 years? If someone had told me then that 6 years on I would be living a fairly peaceful life I wouldn’t have believed them. Actually, I didn’t anticipate any kind of life after you left. And yet 6 years have passed. It is incomprehensible. “It might be incomprothingamy mum but.....” Haha, you still have an aversion to long words I see. “Well I raised a smile at least. I can say incompathingamy as well as anybody.” Ok, ok but really, 6 years and it feels like you were only here this morning? “That’s because…..” Yes, yes, that’s because you are going to tell me that you were here this morning right? That you live in my heart and that we will never be apart. “Ha! Now you’re writing poems. Good girl.” James, are you ever going to be serious? “No. I leave the serious bit to you. You do enough of it for both of us mum. My job, is to try and get a smile out of you. Have I succeeded?” Temporarily. “Ok, tempothingamy is good enough.” Actually, I’ll tell you what raised a smile today. My opponent at court saw your photo on my iPad. She said ‘who’s that?’ And I said, ‘it’s my son’ beaming with pride. ‘He is very handsome’ she said, oblivious to the pain that was hiding behind my smile. ‘Yep, he sure is’ I said. ‘Thank you, I’ll tell him you said so’ and for a moment the world was normal and not broken. I pictured myself coming home to tell you what she had said and you telling me that ‘she’s only human mum’, and me calling you a big-head and it being a normal Friday afternoon of pizza and TV. Nothing will ever be normal again, will it son?