I never cried. And I don't think it's because I'm any less sad. It's probably the opposite. I think I'm just getting better at surpressing it. When I was a little kid and my mother would go on retreats I would scream my head off all while she was packing, and then for hours after she left. Dad would always have to bribe me to come out from underneath the couch.

Which explains in total and complete simplicity why I was so freaked out when my brother was born. She went away, and I was staying with.... a relative, I can't remember who, probably my Grandmother from New Brunswick. When they took me to visit the hospital there are family legends that I stuck my hand in a dish of butter. There are greater stories of far more truth involving me, and the fact that I screamed all the way from the hospital to my grandmothers house, which was a few blocks away, and then all day at my grandma's house, and then most of the night at home.

They all say I hated Erik. I don't think I actually registered that he existed until he came home. I just wanted my Mamma!

So I get up to see her off this morning. I didn't really sleep last night, because no one else slept last night, I don't think. They are gone for about a minute and I'm just standing drinking iced tea in the middle of the kitchen. I instinctively start cleaning it, even though I've only been up for ten minutes and haven't yet been able to actually make a mess.