So I’m in a Teams meeting refining some software requirements with the development team and the BA. It’s a difficult meeting because the BA isn’t the sharpest tool in the box and the problem she wants us to solve is complicated. I am in the office, wearing noise cancelling headphones to drown out some of the other physical people in the room; they talk very loudly.

And the radio starts playing “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon and Garfunkel.

This song was the first piece of music to play when my mum was in hospital for the last time. She died about four or five days later, with my dad, my brother, and me with her.

And that tune whipped me right back into that hospital ward, with heartbreaking speed.

The Teams meeting floated into the back of my awareness and the quiet tune filled all my senses. I was absorbed and transported back to the most horrific time of my life.

But at least my mum breathed still in those final days.

I could feel that I was crying, but with someone else screen-sharing, nobody was paying me any attention.

I often joke that I have emotional integrity fields. Most of the time they keep everything running smoothly. For three minutes on a Thursdays morning, they went completely offline.

I thought to get up and turn the radio off, but I was frozen to my seat. And I didn’t want to do anything that drew attention to my emotions. For somebody to have asked “are you OK?” would have caused a complete collapse.

I struggled through to the end of the meeting, thinking “the song is only three minutes, its only three minutes, its only three minutes”.

Afterwards, I got up and left my desk and went for a walk. I foolishly accepted the offer of a colleague to accompany me to the local supermarket. I needed silence and space, not a crowd and noise.

Hours later I am still shaken by the experience of how easily grief can rise up and choke me.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Grief is the price I pay for having loved my mum.

It is a price I would pay again.

Love leaves its mark forever.