I write this sentence. Tom has been dead for ten years. Ten years now. But the date isn’t branded into me with a hot iron, as they say. When Tom died, in fact, I was at a stage where I didn’t really know what day it was. It’s not the same for my husband. The date is branded with a hot iron into his mind, he says. His life turned upside down around this date. Me too, my life turned upside down. But these are not words I’d say. For example, the dates to do with my children, my other children, I have to consciously think about them. I tend to mix them up; my children were all born in spring, like the young of otters or koalas or Tasmanian devils, or lots of other animals; I’m only naming the animals that interest me. May, June. The birthday season. It’s coming up soon. I want to write: if we are still alive. It’s a sentence that came to me often after Tom’s death. I said it like a discovery, nothing really astounding, but like a fact I was unaware of until then. If we are still alive.
