Pulse

It is there in the recesses of my brain, poised at the back of my throat.

Pulse, pulse, pulse.

'This time last year, she was alive.'

Whilst I'm going about my mundane daily life, it speaks in a quiet voice in my ear.
Sometimes gentle, sometimes taunting, gloating.

When I look at her sister.

'This time last year, she was alive.'

I should have a memory for every hour she was alive. It was so crushingly short a time.
But I don't.
Some of them were washed away by the shock.
Some of them I never even bothered to make.

I wish, oh how I wish, wish, wish that I hadn't wasted our time.
On sleeping. On eating.
Not concentrating.

I didn't realise it would only be three days and some odd hours.
I didn't want to realise.
I didn't want to admit a possibility, a probability of death.

I'm attending a wedding this afternoon. Why on earth I said I would go I don't know. I must be even more stupid than I sometimes suspect.
I just didn't anticipate that this time would be so difficult for me. I thought it would be just another day. And it is. And it isn't.
I hope my good British stiff upper lip doesn't let me down. Wish me luck old beans (feeble attempt to channel Bertie Wooster there).

When I see the photographs of this afternoon's wedding, of me and Jessica in our frocks in the English drizzle, I'm sure all that I will really see will be that pulse.

'This time last year, she was alive.'

* * *

And thank you so much for the Honest Scrap award. I think it is the first time I have ever been awarded anything.
I have been enjoying reading everyone else's responses.
I am going to have to try and think of ten interesting things about myself.
It may end up having to be slightly Dishonest Scrap or it will be too dull to read. :)