Last Night 2022

I was sorting through some old stuff and came across this, which I have never shared. I wrote it as I wandered round my empty house in Nailsea for the last time, after all the furniture had headed north with my wife and I had stayed for one final night. I can't remember why that had to happen, but it did. It's quite personal so I may have felt a bit odd about sharing it at once. I found the leaving and retiring process emotionally very draining:

I sleep on a mattress in an otherwise empty house. I wake looking at Mendip foothills for the last time.

I have tea, coffee, a leaky bottle of milk and a chip fork for a spoon. I have toast but accidentally packed the marmalade.

Rooms in which we loved and laughed. The ghosts of Quiet Days and family parties, Deanery Standing Committees and Church Vision Days, hover above. Nowhere to sit. I eat on the stairs. 

I was standing over there when I heard my Mum had died.

I was standing in the kitchen most nights for ten years waiting for a call from the motorway. We used to see if we could eat together.

I was watching Election Night in this room with a group of young adults, explaining the democratic process as my heart broke. Still broken.

Weddings and funerals were planned in here.

That is blood on the carpet where my love cut her head. Ambulance at 5.00 a.m. on a Saturday in the days when that happened.

There’s music in every wall.

Both sons lived here for a year and now have their lives.

My grandson sat on my knee here.

Soon I will turn off the power, the water and turn the key in the lock. I will drive away. Not to a new life. Hate that expression. This sixteen years is coming with me.