Compassion, Spring 2023

Spring 2023 - Compassion | tcf.org.uk 9 “Ew…..gross. And you still have stuff in the cupboard from then? That’s yucky.” Yep. But that’s all I have James. I find it really difficult to throw away stuff that was here when you were here. “Please tell me that you did.” Let’s not go there. “Yuk!” It’s weird James. It’s as though I want to preserve everything as it was when you were here and freeze time. It’s inexplicable. I decorated the living room. You would love it now. Beautiful colours that match your DJ photo. “The one you took off my Twitter page when you were Twitter stalking me?” Yes, that one. “So you admit stalking me.” J ames, can we stay focussed. I love the new room but it isn’t a room that you sat in any more. I finally let go of the sofa too. The sofa that we used to cuddle up on, and it was soooo difficult. I wanted to keep the broken one because you sat on the broken one. “It wasn’t broken then.” No but you sat on it and that’s what mattered. “Mum, these are just things.” Yes, but things that you knew, that you touched. Things that were here when you were here. And that won’t ever happen again. Nothing will be here when you were here again. I don’t know if that is even a sentence that makes sense. YOU and THINGS won’t be here at the same time again. Looking at a packet with a date on it… a before date… is just so precious and difficult to let go of. It speaks of a world that wasn’t broken. A world that contained such beauty. “But you did.” Did what? “Let go of out of date stock cubes.” No.