05

With my laptop tucked between my knees, and my spine gently curved against the couch, I sat, and thought.  Watching miniscule snowflakes silently drop, and melt upon the ground.

With my fingers nimbly pressed against the keyboard, my lips were pursed, as words failed to come, and grand poetic gestures of depth failed to surface, failed to pool at my fingertips.

The snowflakes kept falling.

I thought, of how much you meant to me, to my mother. How much, by you just being you had changed our lives beautifully. My thoughts travelled to my mother. The woman of whom, alongside you and your family’s influence, has developed the person I continue to grow into, and to be.

I thought of who my mother was. Who she had cocooned herself into, and I remembered dark nights in silent rooms, watching the moon crawl across the sky, as I watched my mother sit in solemn contemplation.

I remembered hearing your name for the first time, the smile that lined my mother’s lips, as she told me of the woman who worked in Spillar’s Lane.

I remembered hearing the laughs and murmurs inside that gallery, the first time I walked by and you were there. How my mother, with a smile so fantastically grand, strolled in, and began to talk again, to the infamous Antoinette, of whom I had heard so much.

As my mind drew back into memories, snowflakes continued to drift lazily along the wind, and rest against cold ground, my fingers still lay against black pads of letters, my lips still pursed.

I remembered the force and confidence in which you knew my mother, how you could decipher each and every facial expression, know her lies and her truths, and tear her from her cocoon, with such love and strength.

I remembered how much I loved you, even before I knew you, for just how happy you made her, how strong you made her, your friendship easing the transition in which my mother became, Ann.

Explosive, roaring and wild Ann, with unashamed roars of laughter, uncontrolled bouts of fantastic insanity, and smiles of incontrollable euphoria, no longer a silent suppressed soul, now free to fly, with the wings you gave her.

Time continued to speed on, as my eyes glazed over, and I gently relived memories, specs of white frozen raindrops skimming past my window, as I traversed to the depth of you.

I thought of the traits in which I admire in you, the traits of which I wish to possess, and treasure in any individual; your strength, your defiance, and your loyalty, your passionate character and fiery self. Your loving nature, your honesty as an individual, your depth, and equally; your simplicity, in that, you are who you are, and you see the world, as it is, and take it for no more, and no less.

I thought of the utter warmth you have brought into both my life, and my mother’s, and I am sure, countless others.

As my eyes drifted from the snow, and watched the flickering lights of my Christmas tree, it only reminded me of the emotion in which linked itself to this sparkling piece of metal.

I thought of what Christmas had used to mean, of the loneliness and hatred it seemed to represent, and I could only smile at how starkly this contrasted with the life of which I now possess. The life of which, its emotions, have formed from the warmth of you, and your family, and the family of which you have generated for me.

I thought of the gifts of which you possess, and the influence of you, on my own character, life, and choices, in the way you made me feel, the self worth you made me see, and the love in which you accepted me into your life, with such utter warmth of which I had never to that extent experienced.

I thought of how much, how truly phenomenally you had inspired me. A spark of absolute purity and unashamed euphoria of inspiration, and I knew in my head, you were my greatest inspiration.

Your existence and the life you have lived thus far an honest inspiration in the way I think, feel, and view the world around me, the world of which you have changed, and truly for the better.

As I blankly stared, the snow ceased to fall, silence ensued, and I gently returned to the present.

To the feeling of the pads of my feet pressed together, the heat of my wrists against my stomach, the gentle weight of my fingers against these black keys.

To the feeling of my back, curved against the throw in which you bought for my mother, on the couch of which you helped her pick, in the room you helped create into that of a haven, in the house of which you helped create a home.

To the feeling of electricity in my veins, the deep emotion of silent happiness, security, and strength, spinning in my chest, coursing along my bones, as I thought of all you’d done, and all that you are.

And no poetry could come. No metaphor of such linguistic grandeur as to make a soul cry, no expression strong enough, deep enough, to express that of which I feel, and many others, for who you are, all that you’ve done, and all that you continue to do, and be.

And so I sat. And I wrote. I wrote all that I could, the raw truth, void of naivety, poetic metaphors, emotive language and linguistic grandeur.

Just… the plain, honest, truth.