They do things differently there

The past has been, you might say, after me lately, in various ways (exes rearing their ugly heads in weird ways, the sickness of my grandfather making me keenly feel the time I've not been able to spend with him, the possible recurrence of a childhood vacation again this summer) leaving me feeling like I just want to curl up and have someone else make the food and get the washing machine out from the middle of the kitchen and keep things running smoothly for a while.

Made all the worse by me catching a captivating and tragic tale on Radio 4 this late-morning, about a woman whose son was killed in Afghanistan. Just as I was thinking how utterly outside my experience such a thing is, she talked about the people coming to her door to deliver the horrible news, and suddenly I found myself having to swallow around a lump in my throat and with hot salty tears pricking at my eyes: she sounded just like my mom then, who lost her son a what I soon learned was the same age this boy had been, and got a visit from a police officier rather than a miltary man, but had, spookily, the same tone of voice when she talked about it that I suddenly remember my own mom using. The memory rises up unbidden from the depths, like a kraken.