Trudging Along

Trudging along. That is what she was doing. As she plodded through the grey mush she rolled the word trudging over and over in her brain until it turned into the balderdash all words do when you concentrate on them too much. She felt she was stuck in the place where the words don’t make sense anymore and it was getting harder to escape.

The process that transforms pristine white snow into the brownish grey sludge that one could only trudge through mimicked her own metamorphosis. She once felt light and free, able to dance, twist and turn through the air, a unique snowflake flitting about. Now one that once flitted can only sludge. She felt comfort in this, she wasn’t the only creature turning into something unrecognizably ugly.

She yearned to get lost in the snow, desiring to fade among the flurries into the silent vortex. Nature was a solace, a balm, to the ache in her soul. She didn’t feel like this was dramatic, it was her soul where the wound festered. And when the wound is in your soul it takes the comfort only nature can provide. She found the tree and sat in the frozen snow, enjoying the crunch and the feeling of being securely held. More than being held she longed to hold. She found the headstone and brushed it off, lightly at first and then more rapidly, frantically, needing to see the whole thing. The only evidence left that she was once a mother.