from '336 days before'
TYPE
PoemI should have taken more videos of her.
I should have recorded every moment,
caught every breath,
savoured every laugh.
I touch the screen,
wanting to grab hold of her –
to reach through my phone and
pull
her
out.
I wish she was still here, Dad.
I know, love, I know.
Dad’s desperate to keep it together,
But he’s broken,
We all are.
We’ve kept our distance
These past few months,
keeping our sharp edges to
ourselves.
Getting too close
could cause a puncture
and then we’ll see it.
The emptiness.
The grief. It’ll leak out,
or pull us in.
Either way,
there’ll be no
escaping
it.
My heart shifts a little,
knowing we’ll
never
be the same.
Knowing we won’t ever
fit
like before.
Mum was like
winter socks.
She knew how to keep you warm.
She knew how to hold you.
Dad’s like fingerless gloves.
He tries, but he doesn’t quite
reach your edges –
the important bits –
the bits that really matter.
‘Watch this, Nat! Watch me!’
We stare at the screen as Mum
cartwheels straight into the sea
and then emerges, coughing
and laughing,
trying to catch her breath.
That laugh, Ryan says, smiling, and he’s right.
Mum was small,
but she was a powerhouse.
Big laugh.
Big smile.
Big heart.
Ryan slides his fingers across the screen
so we can watch the scene play out
again and again and again.
She was so passionate, wasn’t she, Dad?
Like about everything.
She was, Nat, he says. She cared too much, your mum.
You know what she’d say to that, don’t you?
What, Nat?
There’s no such thing. You can’t care too much.
© Manjeet Mann from The Crossing, Penguin Random House