Homecoming

Chapter 1

I woke up in the morning in heavy snow. The large flakes crept to the ground with dignity, as if composing their own music. The ground was covered by a good twenty inches, and heavy gray clouds suggested it wasn't over yet. As a child, I used to sit in a window on a narrow and cold windowsill on such a day for a few hours and watch this heavenly theater. It has always seemed extremely reassuring to me, divinely pure and at the same time sublime.

Sometimes I missed the times when my only problems were disputes with my parents, because they forced me to go to bed early, or to learn whether to eat green beans with broccoli, which I hated from the bottom of my heart. I had to smile spontaneously at the memory. Those were good times.

Now that I was standing in my early thirties, I was just grabbing my head at how I wanted to be a terrible adult when I was a kid. Today I would not know what to do so that I can go back to that carefree time. I had somewhere to sleep, I always had a warm dinner on my table and a warm hug from my mother as she blew my broken knees and assured me that the next day it would not hurt at all. I didn't really have to worry about anything, because I got everything and the things I was thinking about at the time seemed to me only like ordinary banalities compared to today.

Today, I saw life as something complex, complicated, unjust, and ruthless. In one second, he was able to deprive a person of the most expensive thing he had and take away his whole zest for life. Sometimes I woke up asking what was the meaning of my life or my presence in this world.

I knew that after Jack's death, I should not take life lightly, but respect it because it is very fragile, but on the other hand, without my loving Jack, my best friend, nothing made sense to me. I lived from day to day like a robot doing the same thing over and over again. My daily schedule was something like this: Get up, survive the day, go to bed again.

Sleep brought me forgetfulness and pain relief for at least a few hours, but how long could I live like this? I felt like a corpse whose heart was still beating and its lungs were filled with precious air, but otherwise the body seemed without a spirit and without a drop of life.

God, Jack, I miss you so much! No matter how hard I tried to come to terms with his death, it didn't work.

I started making tea. I poured boiling water into my glass and dipped a tea bag into it. I went to the window and looked out. It was still snowing. And it was only the beginning of December and the winter was just beginning. Realizing that I would survive on my own, I sighed and turned away from the window.

It was Saturday, shortly after nine, and I was crying again on the couch, drinking tea, which everyone considered a cure for everything. I stared blankly at the wall, wondering what Jack and I would be doing today. Subconsciously, I already knew the answer, but I needed to cling to happy moments.

There were three weeks left until Christmas, and Jack and I adored that time. We were among those people whose home was already decorated with Christmas decorations at the beginning of December. At Christmas we loved everything, evening walks through the decorated streets, the smell of Christmas punch in the city, merry carolers, crowded shopping malls with people looking for everything at the last minute, decorated rooms and last but not least the smell of cinnamon and honeysuckle that spread from the kitchen.

And I haven't even had a tree this year. I didn't want to celebrate this Christmas at first, but suddenly I felt betrayed against Jack as well. He would definitely like me to get a small tree and try to celebrate the holidays as they should be.

After all, I decided to go to the city with mixed feelings and get one. I quickly set the empty cup in the sink and went to get dressed. I pulled on my jeans and a warm burgundy sweater because it was freezing outside and she quietly left the apartment.