Overcast

Overcast

It is overcast today
Four months since I
freely hugged
or leaned over the
puzzle table
saying, “Where do you think
this piece goes?”
to my companion

In search of where each piece fits
Longing for the satisfaction
completion brings

The sun is up there
Still shining
but my world feels grey today

I still embrace those I love
In my hands I cradle
sweet faces
in my heart
even though it is overcast today

I wonder how you got where you are, here by the edge of the concrete, where you bloom.

I also wonder how I got where I am.

It occurs to me that I might be a volunteer like this precious petunia. The conditions are right for our growth. Mine and this purple pretty.

As a writer, I have never been afraid I would have nothing to say. Never has the empty page intimidated me. The space is invitation. The movement of my fingers on the keyboard itself an inspiration. I watch letters appear as if by magic, having left my discursive mind at the door.

This is a time like none other. What I have to say seems to have been said better by others.

I witness this blankness on the page as evidence of the void my heart feels. Not once in his thirty years have I gone this long without being with my him. My first grandchild. My grandson. I remember well his words, “When I am not in my house, and you are not in your house, I am going to miss you.”

He was two.

We have met half-way, in Colombus, Indiana, for the weekend. We are staying in a suite at the Holiday Inn. His grandpa and I sleeping in one room and his mom and he sleeping in the other.

We two are the only ones awake. The small round table and the two chairs where we are seated as he moves the cheerios around in his bowl bear witness to our soft voices as he verbalizes our one heart.

He points to our separate rooms as he speaks. He has a good sense of what is to come. He knows his grandpa and I will go back to Michigan and he will go with his mom back to Tennessee.

He knows we will long for one another.

He knows his mom will wait until he is asleep before she heads south as his grandpa and I head north. Otherwise he would cry and nothing would console him.

I now gather these memories in the tendrils of my current longing — my longing to hold so much and so many.

It is overcast today.

I allow my mind’s eye to blink away the tears until I can see far enough into our future to touch his flesh, smell his breath, and feel the roar of relief.

We must be gentle with ourselves as we navigate the waters of our emotions.