This story begins at the very beginning, long before memory and long before I had words for any of it.

There was a time when my whole world was one presence, one rhythm, one familiar sense of home. And then it was gone.

I cannot remember that loss in the way we remember the things that happen later in life. There are no images to return to, no moment I can consciously recall. But I have often wondered about the things we experience before memory begins, and what we might carry from those earliest separations.

My first winter came before I could understand what loss was. The first absence. The first experience of something familiar no longer being there. Something I couldn't possibly have understood, but which became part of my story before I even knew I had one.

And maybe that is why winter became the name for it.

Not only for the coldness of something disappearing, but for what winter holds beneath the surface.

Roots remain.

Life waits.

And eventually, another season comes.

Niamh