Monday, January 27

I got up last this morning. By the time I emerged Naa had gone to school and the cat had been sick on the carpet. I cleaned up and then beat the carpet and left it outside on the snow to kill any bugs or germs.

In the morning we finally got permission to claim Auo’s body and organise a funeral. Irma set to work and the time and date were soon established as midday next Thursday. She arranged the undertaker, the chapel, the hall for the reception, the priest, the music, and more. I admired her and then had a shower.

At midday I went for a walk. I went to Prisma to see if they had any bulbs for our winter lights. The answer, as I suspected, was that they will have more supplies in November. Maybe.

I then decided to walk to Clas Ohlson to see if they had any. They didn’t.

Now that I am in Itis I decide to spend ten minutes looking round. It is almost empty, except for the restaurant section which is almost full. I am on the top floor walking towards the new Stockmann. I will go in for approximately one minute before deciding to walk home.

When I get back we will go to see the chapel where the funeral will be held. We will spend forty minutes there with the man who runs it, figuring out how the service will work. On the way back we will both comment that the whole procedure seems completely surreal. We still cannot get used to the fact that this is now what we are having to do, and that Auo will never walk back into our lives.

I had another gotcha moment in Prisma. I saw a comic and thought – for one split second – that I would get that for Auo, before remembering with a kind of physical thud that she would never be here to read it.

Aaagh!