Mourning

After her husband died, she hoped to die of a broken heart but death was not so accommodating. They had been married for forty three years. They had no children by choice.

For twenty-two years of their marriage he had been a pastor of a church whose congregation grew from twelve to about a hundred within its first year. Before their five year anniversary it swelled to an average attendance hovering around the eight hundred mark and they had a membership roster of over six hundred. By the time he left a weekly average of five or six thousand was not uncommon. On Christmas and Easter they often surpassed the ten thousand mark.

Alone in the kitchen of their modest, two floor, two bedroom house she holds a cup of coffee with both hands. The heat from the freshly poured serving approaches but never quite reaches the threshold of pain. She feels the warmth radiate through her fingers and palms. She looks out the window and sees morning light up the suburb. It's the heart of summer and she thinks, "this is a season for life, not death, for joy, not mourning. But we have no say in these matters."

She raises the cup to her lips, blows over the surface then takes a sip. She can't taste the coffee through the burn. She lowers it back down onto the saucer and waits for the coffee to cool.