I always have trouble sleeping at night. In summer it’s a little easier, the world seems to keep moving no matter what time of the day or night it may be. But in winter there is something about it, maybe just the silence that for me becomes too much to handle, but the world seems to go into hibernation. My 70 plus years on this planet have always been busy ones, full of noise and people, but now as time has gone by there isn’t a lot of my people left. Right up until a few years ago you would have found me and my wife down at the pub on a night like this one, keeping warm with a drink in hand laughing along to the friends we had. But now as she is no longer around I take these winter strolls alone.

I often think back to my wife as I walk alone. She hadn’t died I don’t want you to get me wrong, she just isn’t here anymore. The home where she now lives because of the 24 hour care they give is the best place for her. It saddens me every time I see her, a little bit more of her has faded away. A silhouette of her former self.

I went to see her this afternoon and I could tell that she knew the end was coming. She gave me something that she has kept ever since her grandmother had given it to her back when she was a child. The golden brooch brings a small weight to my pocket and I place my hand in to run my old cracked thumb over the top. My wife isn’t or wasn’t one to collect things, she didn’t have expensive taste or spend money on pointless things. But she loved this brooch. The fact that she gave me it today means that I know that she won’t be around tomorrow.