Grief

Grief has no kind of timeline.

It follows strange pathways through my body. I’m tired of feeling it.

I had the thought two days ago, I want to forget her. I will gather all the things in my home that remind me of her. I will box them up and make them disappear from sight. Memories only lead to grief when your someone is murdered.

My phone rings from a good friend of thirty years.

We never talk talk. Just catch up via social media.

It triggered the same panic that I get every time the phone rings, someone is dead. I answered it. Of course no one is dead. We had a lovely conversation filled with laughter and her voice just exactly the way I remember.

I still fear answering my phone. I get a jolt of adrenaline and panic.

I’m tired of my grief. I am choosing life, I promise you. But grief just comes ambling in and you are stricken by lightening. You choose to regroup, get on with whatever it is you were doing, or curl into a singed ball.

I hear a certain performer and remember she loved going to concerts with her kids. I see a certain flower and remember her love of tulips. I smell a food and think of her cooking. I cook and the kitchen is messy, I think of how messy she was. I unlock my car and think of how she broke my lock and how furious I felt. I drive her son to football and know that she would have been a great sports Mom.

Forty something years of memories that cannot be boxed up and made to go away. Though I am tired of my grief I carry on.