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January Grey

 January is a wash of leaden skies and "Silly Season" echoes. I sit here watching the rain slide past the etched phoenix on the window, wondering if you were truly consumed by your fire, or if you found a way to be reborn in the ashes. I try not to think about it—I really can't—but the month is a graveyard of memories. We always said January was the worst. It’s proving us right.

I remember a January sharp with anger. I was looking for a flat, ready to leave, and then the pneumonia took you. Suddenly, the anger evaporated. I sat by your bedside, an unwanted ghost ignoring visiting hours, coming and going to the visible annoyance of the nurses. I realized then, amidst the hum of the machines, that I simply missed you too much. The house was too quiet. It’s the same silence I live in now, only this time, you’re gone forever.

I drown myself in the rain and the park, or stay inside with the melancholic beat of Nordic music. I look for the "Whales," clinging to the rhythm that carried me through Christmas. Every year since 2021, the hospital claimed you. I remember the "merciless" ones—those nurses with false eyelashes as long as their hearts are hollow, fluttering for consultants who couldn’t care a monkey’s breath. I’ve been in that career; I know the bitching and the management wrath. I’ve seen the students cower as a Senior snaps "Do it again!" over a blood pressure cuff they can’t master.

But then, the final months changed the colors. I saw you cared for, sang to, and cajoled with a respect that broke my heart. You rejected me at the end, so I became a shadow. I slept in the corner of your room, hiding so you wouldn’t see me and throw me out. I walked those hallowed halls at night while your life ebbed away. The same doctor who asked if you were alright—the one who saw you finally accept me back as long as I didn’t wake you from your tremulous sleep—was the one there when the end truly came.

"They gave me four years, they gave you six months," the song cries. Soft Rains of April.

Then came the home-going. February is no better, even if it holds my birthday. It was our running joke: "They might forget your birthday, but I’ll remember the year you were so ill you forgot." When they said the end was near, your boys came racing, flying, and running to your side. We brought you home for one "special summer." The last summer ever.

Now, I listen to the music and the lyrics: Come back my fallen son. You loved those boys. And now, fourteen days until... well, I’m masking that. I won't let you know how that feels. I'm just sick and tired, and January is still so very grey.

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