Oak, a memory.

A man, in his best suit and polished shoes, shuffles with heavy steps through oak leaves. Head down, hands in his pockets, empty save for the handkerchief which he doubts he will use. He is drawn to an oak tree.

His mother’s death a hammer blow, old fissures cracking open, the lava of long suppressed memories rushing up. Scalding.

His had been a stony home: the diva and the drill sergeant. The father dished out cold, hard discipline. The mother, a narcissist, sucked up all the energy.

As a teenager he took his bone-weary loneliness to the woods. He scoured books about narcissists, hoping to find a way through to her, but they all agreed….back off. He liked to think it was his humanity that continued to reach out to her, but he suspected it had only ever been about him, crawling back like a beaten dog, longing for love.

Gnarled oak bark draws his attention. He feels the trees presence gently easing in. A leaf brushes his face. Lifting his eyes to the branches above, leaves fall, more leaves fall till he is surrounded. Leaves set off ripples through him.

‘You,’ he whispers shyly to the oak. A smile lifts his sunken face, his breathing deepens, muscles relax. He stands taller.

Catching a leaf, he folds it gently till it crinkles and puts it in his breast pocket, close to his heart. He surrenders to the trees benediction, balm to his jagged grief and walks to meet the cortege.

A memory from the morning of my mother’s funeral.