Moments Before Midnight

It is moments before midnight, and I sit in this silent house with the cold creeping across my lap. It's times like these when the dark thoughts come. Look around, read the news, listen to the commentary. Despair.

Give yourself some time off from all this, they tell me. Put up that shelf in the dining room. Sing duets with your son.

I try to explain. The news. The commentary. The things you're not told that you don't really want to know.

Duets, they repeat.

I understand the point, but it needs to be said that we do all sing. We built a platform for a rain barrel today. Saw, drill, nails, screws, blue sky, sun, a happy dog watching. That's singing.

And we went down to the lake, all of us: Trudy, the boy, the dog and I. Blue skies, mid-60s following those long days of treacherous highways and ice-coated trees. We ran in the sun by the river with all the other people that had the same idea. And all the other dogs. That's singing.

But it's moments like these, when the echoes of that singing have begun to fade. It's moments like these when the cold comes creeping. It's moments like these, moments just before midnight, when the despair won't be kept silent anymore.

These moments are important, too.

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