Mostly Fine Life

Inventory

I’ve been struggling. Honestly. Menopause probably isn’t helping. Sometimes, everything seems in control. And sometimes, not. I was made redundant the same week my lovely Mum died. It wasn’t planned that way. I was being made redundant anyway, but asked to move it up since Mum was terminal, and I wanted to be able to look after her. My request was accepted. She died 2 days later. I will never be able to reconcile that. It’s been the strangest 8 months of my life. And the person I always talked to about this stuff, my Mum, is no longer here. That is a loneliness I can’t even explain. And so, I wrote this …

Take Stock

At fifty-four, I take stock of what is here:
No husband, children, nieces, or nephews,
No crowded table waiting every year,
No family tree extending into futures.
No close friends filling up the empty space,
No father’s voice, my mother gone as well;
No work to give the weekdays shape or place,
No particular belonging I can tell.

And yet the kettle boils. The garden grows.
The dogs require their dinner. Cats complain.
A bowl of soup is waiting. Something shows
Its first green leaves and asks for sun again.
Perhaps a life need not be grand or whole
To still be living, breathing, finding soul.k.