Voices in my head

Something unexpected happened this morning. It came in the early hour, while walking the dog. For a variety of reasons, not in themselves all that mysterious with the grey wet weather and all, my heart stopped its progress and became heavier. For one thing, I suppose I am tired from the physical pursuit and recovery of health, drained from climbing my way through full days again. And after several bright and clear days, the skies this morning were low-hung grey ones, motionless in their dampness, no sun, no breeze. And suddenly at the very moment when so far I’ve been better, I became worse. I stepped into a pocket of mourning.

I remembered my father’s voice and heard his voice in my head. And I was hit so hard and fast by the realization that his voice is a memory now. It no longer exists. And the idea that I won’t hear him again, and cannot speak to him, is grueling to consider. I’ve never gone this long without speaking to my father and I yearn to call him, yet know that I cannot. Not in what was our ordinary discourse, not in the here and now. Such is a fact. I can only imagine his end of conversations in my head. And of course I can make sense of it, it’s not as if I just realized this, but you can’t see anything clearly when there are tears in your eyes, and the thought flattened me this morning. It is the intensity of my longing to speak with him that draws a curtain around me, puts me in a vacuum, and in a desperate and dark voice makes me say if only I could talk with him. And I say it out loud, in a pleading whisper, though I'm not sure who I'm speaking to, or who hears, or what it would solve. This only serves as evidence that awareness settles in slowly, like light and tiny snowflakes that appear throughout the night, settling over plants and lampposts, softening their shape, changing their appearance but not what’s beneath. It is the intensity of knowing that this is one more thing that I have to accept.