Open Writing

After a long flight through the night, my muscles relax at the sight of Howard waiting for us at the airport. The visit to my family had been very important for us all but I missed my husband and am glad to be home. It's a relief to hand over the burden of luggage and boys, as he leads us out to his new company Audi. Cars are a passion with Howard and I'm suiprised that he isn't more excited about it but too weary to give it much thought. On the way home, memories pop to the surface of our journey-fuddled minds. Conversation is disjointed and sporadic. Howard's questions and responses seem forced, as if he's angry about something.

Once we're safely inside, Howard sits us down and shares the terrible secret he's earned for the past week.

'Louise is dead.'

I can't breathe. I can't take it in. I'm angry. It must be a joke, but I can see from Howard's face that it isn't. I want to scream or run away or fight to get her back. Words don't make sense. I go and stand in the shower and the tears come. I'm afraid they won't stop.

'When we got back, jet-lagged and weary,' Howard sits beside me on the bed and relives his nightmare, 'I dropped Jim and Rory off and called in at the supermarket for a few essentials.'

'I ran into Uncle Lesley in the car park and he started telling me how sorry he was.' It was a cruel place to learn that his beautiful sister had been knocked down and killed on a pedestrian crossing a few days earlier.
'He didn't realise that I didn't know.'

A teenage boy, possibly under the influence of something, had been driving three times the speed limit round a blind corner, through a village, and not seen her in time. Louise was with her husband and friends enjoying a pleasant evening one moment and gone the next. Similar to my mother and cousin, she'd been 36 years old and touched many lives with joy. The mourners filled the building and spilled out into the street.

Having missed the funeral myself, it still doesn't seem real. I go to see Peter, Louise's husband. He looks hollow, shocked and utterly devastated yet concerned for others, trying to make us smile with his memories. We visit Mum, so distressed by the months of trauma we've been through with her grandson. She looks squeezed out, every footstep an effort. She hasn't even the strength to cry.

*

Louise, I see her in my mind, always with a different hairstyle, full of sparkle and fun. She was especially good at choosing gifts for people, thoughtful and forgiving. Her sleeves would be pushed up and she'd be stuck in before a word was spoken, if there was help needed. She loved to pop in for a visit when the Coronation Street soap opera came on so she could tease us for watching it. Howard would pretend to be furious and lock her out. Throughout the valleys around Huddersfield, her beautiful singing voice was well known.

Her father hadn't approved of her choice of Peter but she'd married him anyway. Cynthia also defied Geoffrey to attend her daughter's quiet wedding. Geoffrey had been frightened that Peter was too old for Louise. Much older, divorced and with children already, Peter had made it clear he didn't want any more. We worried that Louise would be alone, if he died before her, as seemed likely. But she was headstrong and she loved him.
Peter's gift for seeing the humour in people and situations would be
sorely tested now.