How do you find time to write/grieve your father

I do it after the kids go to bed.

I wake early in the morning and do it when everyone else is sleeping. Sometimes I do it in my dreams.

I do it in public, discreetly, so no one knows what I’m doing, because I don’t want anyone to ask me about it. I do it on public transport, or in cafes. The best place is the library, because books make good camouflage.

I don’t. I neglect it. I put it off for later. I procrastinate. I bake a cake or watch TV. Then there is guilt and shame.

I’ve learned to do it in scraps, five minutes here or there, those bits of time when you suddenly find yourself alone.

I do it standing up at the kitchen bench. I do it at the cost of everything else. The laundry piles up. The kids run feral. The saucepan burns.

I schedule time for it. I put aside a morning, a day, a weekend. This isn’t foolproof. All it takes is a sick child, an emailed request, a knock on the door, a mechanical fault and this time diminishes as if it was never mine at all.

How do you know I’m not doing it now? I’m doing it all the time. It’s not an activity. It’s a filter through which I experience the world.