in memory still green

This week was trying at times. I still have trouble getting enough sleep. The table above is supposed to show my natural rhythms, but I certainly don't get to sleep at the times it shows.

It didn't help that the people who live next door went away for the weekend and left their dogs at large in their yard. Their driveway is right outside my bedroom window, so whenever the dogs spotted someone passing in the street, they would run down the driveway barking -- sometimes at 3 a.m.

This often left me lying awake in bed, brooding over the approach of Valentine's Day. That had nothing to do with romance; my mother has been dead for a couple of years and I have come to terms with occasions like Christmas and New Year without her. But her birthday falls on February 14th and that's hard not to think about.

The last 36 hours, all the emotions I thought were safely consigned to the archives shelf have started welling up again. The grief, the regret, all that stuff. Every sale or commercial advertising Valentine's Day just rubs salt into the wound.

I remember John Bangsund saying that he found Easter difficult because his father had died on Good Friday. I can appreciate how he felt now.

But I try to concentrate on what my mother would have said if she could have commented on the situation. Don't be so silly, she would have said, get on with things instead of moping around dwelling on the past.

Maybe that's what I should try and do.