6 years.

Typical almonds and raisins day today.  Saw a brilliant movie "Pride" with my Mum, slightly difficult time spent with her, as per normal. Whilst driving home from dropping her off, I had almost pulled up and stopped at one of those heavy intersections when the flashing lights of a fire engine caught my eye and breath in an instant.  The middle of the road bush hid the rest of the carnage from my view but I did not need to see because my heart already knew why it was there.

The jaws of life.

 6 years and one month ago, in another part of the world, those jaws of life were being employed to cut the man I love from the vehicle that cocooned his body.  I was not there,  I was not even in the same country, nor was I awake or aware of the fight that was going on.  Not for several days, until after I had returned, did I know the truth and agony of what he had been through. For the most part, that knowledge was shelved in the part of my brain that quickly became the "too agonising to think about" vault.  In those seconds/minutes when a thought surfaced, the pain whisked it away. Passing accidents, hearing of accidents, sometimes hearing sirens would set of the reaction I never had.

6 years, 1 month after his accident; 17 months after he died, whilst slowing to a stop, that vault door swung open.

I sobbed my way home.