When the music stops there is silence.
The fandango of support ceases, the front door shuts,
the car doors close, the assembled crowd of wellwishers leaves.
You are alone.

Walking the recently-emptied rooms compounds your numbness,
post-death euphoria of life’s celebration fades
and what has got you through that first week
bids farewell as the last car disappears down the drive and the tears fall.

You are left with the remnants of dried-up cucumber sandwiches,
detritus of bottles and lipstick-stained glasses, scrunched-up paper napkins.
You rinse the dishes under the tap, fill the dishwasher
like a robot, your head unable to grasp the chasm.

One day merges blurred into another.
The cards fall disconsolate off the mantelpiece.
You tussle with disloyalty as you tidy them away in the drawer
and tip the dried and dying flowers into the bin.

You wrangle with yourself as you look at the clothes in the wardrobe,
books on the shelf, papers on the desk, collecting dust.
How to field the questions?  What would she have wanted?
How on earth do you make the choices required of you?

The days slide by as the first news passes, the phone rings less,
your isolation becomes more profound with dawning reality.
People revert to their lives, fit back into daily routines and preoccupations,
don’t want to intrude, awkward words stilling on their hesitant lips.

So you fall back into yourself
because there is nowhere else to go.
You know the effort must be yours
to get through each day, to find a way.

It’s your predicament to live with the event
your response to grief yours alone.
Others empathise, say kind words, walk beside you,
but no one else walks within you.  Just you.