When I got home, the room was already full.

Uncles, aunts, cousins talked in whispered

voices, so’s not to sully the silence.

 

Nods welcomed me, quiet glances spoke

a kind of code, untaught yet understood

in the aftermath of such occasions.

 

My mother was in her usual chair.

We’d been expecting it, but when the time

finally came, it still took her by surprise.

 

I wanted to be anywhere but there, not sure

how I was meant to feel. Should I take comfort

from visitors, or serve it as a host?

 

Family, friends, came and went, supportive

with their presence, even if they couldn’t

find clichéd words of consolation.

 

When the last one left, the room echoed

to their parting, the void enfolded us, leaving

nothing but the shadow of troubled sleep.