Last Breath

Saturday 15th January

Day 269

I’m making egg and cress sandwiches when the phone rings. My cousin says his brother died half an hour ago. He says the rhythm of his breathing hardly faltered and then one breath was the last one. He says he was peaceful. I notice that today was also his mother’s birthday. She was my favourite aunty. I was making Seville orange marmalade the day she died.

We eat the egg and cress sandwiches in the car driving to Bristol. I feed my husband chunks of cucumber and celery in between bites of bread. The eggy mayonnaise mixture drops onto his trousers. We are going to help decorate my nephew’s new house before the carpets arrive on Tuesday. His wife is pregnant and gets heartburn if she bends down, so our job is to paint the skirting boards and the bottoms of the doors.

While my paintbrush marches along the wood I think about my cousin’s blue eyes and his sweet smile. And I think about the baby boy that will come soon, in the month of May, to join our family.