wendy smith - Then We Were Two

THEN WE WERE TWO

Lost. Abandoned. Alone. That's how I felt when my father died.

I had the feeling that I would never sleep again and having awoken, I had emerged from a state that could never be reentered.

I got out of bed and went directly into my mother's room. It was early and I never got up early. Neither did she. She was laying on her side in bed, fully dressed, staring straight ahead in bewilderment as the tears furrowed deep paths down her cheeks. "Wendy," she called to me, somewhere between a question and a statement. Then I knew for sure. I can't remember how much I cried then, but I know I cried some and she cried a lot. Eventually my arm went to sleep and I had to go to the bathroom. So, like a sleepwalker, I went through the motions in a complete daze; that kind of cottony no man's land where I felt as if I'd been drugged,but knew it was a shot of life I'd had instead.

frosted window
moving from shock to grief
like entering another room