Mam, I keep thinking about whether you were cold.
It didn’t occur to me properly at the time. I thought the heating was enough. The house felt warm to me. I was moving. I was getting up. Making tea. Going to the bathroom. Doing things without thinking.
You weren’t.
Now I sit still for hours and I feel it. The cold that settles in when you don’t move. Even when I put the heating on. Even with a blanket. I feel it in my bones. I even wrote about it, without realising it was really about this. It was really about you. This has been in my mind for weeks.
I couldn’t stop thinking about you.
Were you cold like this?
I keep going over what you wore. A vest. A dress. A jumper, thick cosy socks. A blanket. I tell myself that should have been enough. I tell myself we made sure you had layers. That we adjusted the heating, kept it on longer, to keep the cold out because you weren’t mobile anymore.
But the question won’t leave.
What if it wasn’t enough?
What if I didn’t notice?
What if I was judging warmth by how it felt in my body instead of yours?
I thought our living room was warm but I didn’t really understand what stillness does to a body’s temperature.
I remember your hands always being cold, so I gave you gloves, dismissing it as circulation related. I remember thinking I had covered it. Now I wonder if I missed something obvious.
I hate that this realisation came now. I hate that my body understands something now that it didn’t then.
I hate that I think this now.
I’m angry at my own body for teaching me this too late. I’m angry that grief keeps finding new ways to hurt. I’m angry that I can’t check. That I can’t fix it. That I can’t ask you, Mam.
I’m scared to ask anyone else. I’m scared they’ll confirm what I’m afraid of. I’m scared they won’t, and I’ll still think it anyway.
I don’t know what to do with this guilt. It doesn’t move forward. It doesn’t lead anywhere. It doesn’t resolve. It just sits there. Adding more. Finding more questions, more thoughts, the second guessing swirling constantly in my head.
Were you cold?
I don’t know if this is memory or imagination or timing or punishment. I don’t know if this means anything at all. I just know it’s in my head and it won’t leave.
And I don’t know how to get it to stop.
Were you cold, Mam?