words

it has taken me 679 days to remember the last word she said to me.

679 days for the pain of loss to subside just enough for my heart to remember. it was a simple word, that elusive last word, and i don’t know how i could possibly have forgotten it, but i did. it was a word i had heard her utter thousands of times throughout the days of my life. maybe that’s why i forgot it... because to remember would be a constant reminder that i’d never hear her say the word again.

in the course of my life sometimes the word was directed at me, sometimes at others. sometimes i heard her say the word from another room and i would lean into the wall so i could hear the other words surrounding this word. it was a carefully chosen word. a defining word. a word given in love.

i still hear the word spoken aloud almost every day. but not by her. i like how it sounds when others say it, but the word is a bit like a hug to me i guess... it feels the best when it comes from the one who loves you the most.

the last time she said the word she was a little bit panicked. she wanted me close to her. she needed to know i was near. there was an urgency in her voice that just about ripped my heart right out of my chest. the simple word beckoned me right into the centre of her pain... but because the word was spoken i could share the pain too. there was something lovely about lying near to her, staring and dreaming and loving in the aftermath of the word.

when i was younger (and sometimes when i was not younger) she occasionally said the word to me with frustration written all over her face, but these days i don’t remember too many of those times. sometimes she said it with so much love that my heart would bow down low at her feet, willing to follow any instruction that followed the simple word from her lips. sometimes the word was buried happily in a sentence, as though it was swimming in a pond of kindness and laughter... on those occasions i would jump into the conversation and let the kindness and laughter wash away whatever silliness i had been holding onto for the day. sometimes the word fell on deaf ears, where because of my preoccupation with some inane activity i deemed more important, i pretended to not hear it. these days i’d do just about anything to hear the word spoken by her just one more time.

the last word my mum said to me before she died was my name.

it was a small word, that last word she said to me, but a word that i loved to hear her say. it was the word that she gave to me the day i was born. a word dreamed up before i even took a breath. this small word is who i am. it is the word that introduces me to the world. it is the one i have always known, and the one i will carry with me for all the days of my life. i guess it's a bit like my mum in that regard.