A/N: another post. I hope you like the story even through it's somber nature. Feedback is always welcome.

Writing this story is for me a sort of healing process, slowly coming to terms with the loss of my last remaining, dearly missed uncle who passed away two months ago

oOo

Even now, after all this time he still felt the same loss he had felt the moment he had opened the envelope for the first time.

But now there were other feelings running side to side with loss: regret and guilt.

He stared out of the window. He saw the soft-pink and white blossom on the apple trees (Malis Domestica). He used to enjoy the scenery painted in front of his eyes, the colors, the sun's rays touching the small blooms. Almost tenderly stroking the tiny leaves, gently revealing it's beauty for everyone who took the time to notice.

He would have spend free hours amongst the trees, the flowers, cutting away the blossom that had withered. He used to marvel over the soft yellow blooms of the Rhododendron Luteum (Yellow Azalea) that emerged early April even before it grew leaves.

He used to notice.

But Spring hadn't been the season he enjoyed anymore, not anymore now he knew the truth.

oOo

It was after he had finally decided he would attend the mourning service. The address was written on the card. It was not something he had ever thought he would be going to attend. Never ever could he have imagined the lively, warm, kind and beautiful woman Sue was, would be gone.

Never ever could he get used to not hearing her enchanting laugh, now it was replaced by the solemn silence of the polished granite of her tombstone amidst the green grass. He couldn't have imagined that the only physical remembrance of her would only be felt by his fingers when they trailed over the carved out letters that formed the inscription on it.

But he nevertheless had to.

oOo

Never again

Such simple words.

But what a world of grief they held.

oOo

It had become clear when he had arrived that day. It was raining. Not a downpour, but a steady fine mist that would slowly soak everyone with every minute that went by. The sky had been disconsolate that day, patches of gray tinted with dark, almost black streaks of other clouds passing by. Nature had wrapped herself up against the steady moisture trailing down from the skies above.

Blooms had timorously retracted into their shells, the crocus were hanging downwards. Almost as if they had surrendered to the somberness of the moment. The absence of birds was as unmistakably resonant as the soft dripping of the water drops that fell from the branches of the surrounding trees.

Temperature had dropped too. The moment the sun's warm rays had vanished it seemed Winter tried to regain a foothold, in an attempt to reign longer, to set back time.

He wouldn't have minded if time had been set back that day.