Mixed Emotions

Sitting on the floor of our kitchen. Eating my wife’s “Hippy cakes.” Daughter bopping around banging kitchen utensils as classical piano music also plays in the background. The house is a disaster. We’re exhausted and my wife’s mother has been laid to rest. The two year war is over and we lost. Exhaustion mixed with a sideways sense of relief. It’s over and we can never change that. All we have are the survivors. Cliche but so is life.