Clouds

Sometimes you just have to look up.

When I was little, in a pram and talking too much,  my mum would encourage me to look up. Children stayed in prams well into their talking years and my mum told me that she used to wish for one of those new-fanged  pushchairs that faced the other way. I wanted to know ‘Why?’ all the time and that was exhausting. She probably thought there would be less to look at and therefore less questions. She was very disappointed when my first question was, “Why isn’t the sky always blue?”  However, whenever I’m feeling a little overwhelmed I go and look at the sky.

My youth was filled with endless hours of no entertainment. We were bored a lot of the time and I can remember whole days lying on the grass watching the clouds skid across the sky. Both my parents enjoyed the game of finding pictures in the clouds.

I know I promised not to talk about death but here I go again.

When people die you miss them. I know that sounds obvious but really it’s the most important thing. The people who tried to answer your questions just aren’t there. Yes, you are a grown up and there are books and the internet and they probably haven’t been very good at answering your questions for years but they are just not there to ask. Stupid things, that you don’t really need an answer to like, “Do you think I should plant my potatoes earlier this year?” and more important things like, “Would you have liked us to keep that hideous candlestick you got from your mother?” Then there are the huge questions that you didn’t even bother asking when they were alive like, “Am I enough?” Obviously, you didn’t ask them when they were alive because you knew there was unconditional    love. It didn’t matter if the answer was, “Don’t be stupid, you are a hopeless waste of space who has    
 never achieved anything significant in life,” because they loved you and that was enough. Now they aren’t there to love you those big questions suddenly seem important. This can be overwhelming, so I look at the sky.

Us humans are always looking for patterns and signs: things to make sense of our existence. When people die and they are missing we look for signs of their continued presence. I used to scoff at people who did this. I still wouldn’t go to a clairvoyant evening but I can understand why people do.

Last year, on the anniversary of my Dad’s death, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed, so I looked up and in the clouds was a huge heart. It seemed nice. Dad always used to say, “Tell me something nice,” when I saw him and the cloud made me think that an afterlife and signs were possible.
 

  

This year, on the second anniversary I was feeling overwhelmed again. I’d had texts reminding me of the date, I was struggling with a flu like cold, worrying about my sister (because that’s what big sisters do) and busy trying to sort out Mum and Dad’s belongings. I looked up and said, “Right, if you are up there and can send a sign then do it again.” A cloud quickly became a heart. Now, I’m sure you think I’m making this up. I would. I would think that I’m a poor fragile woman who is seeing things to make herself feel better about her grief. That could be true. Who knows, or cares? Except that I did. I didn’t have a camera with me and so kept thinking. “I can’t prove this.”

It bothered me all morning. So I grabbed my camera and went out again. I searched the sky for another heart shaped cloud but there weren’t any. Then this appeared.

 

I caught my breath. “Oh, it’s a polo,” I thought. “Is Mum with you?” I shouted at the sky, like some mad woman and an elephant moved across the sky.

It may not look like an elephant to you but you have to remember that my Dad couldn’t draw with a pencil, so what’s the chance he can do any better with a cloud?