Hobson's Choice
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How my grief works
When I run into people around town, it sometimes seems like they're wondering about my grief. It feels like they're thinking that I don't look sufficiently somber and wan, fragile. I don't know that's what they're thinking, but that's what I think they're thinking. It can be awkward.
Here is how my grief works:
We are engaged in killing a family of mice who make nightly visits on our kitchen drawers (where no food is, so what are they doing there? I digress). I cannot stand to set the traps, cannot stand to see the dead mice. I cannot help but think that the baby was even smaller than these dead gray mice.
I hate answering the phone, and there are long stretches of each day where I sit quietly in a chair. I think, I cannot possibly get up and do anything ever again. I am grateful to Sesame Street for distracting Eleanor during these long minutes when I think I will sit in the rocking chair forever.
And yet, and yet, I'm still making jokes all day; I'm still thrilled with each new word out of Eleanor. And there is a part of me that exults that, for the first time in almost three years, I can take in as much caffeine as I want without thinking or worrying about it (I had a coke today).
7:46 p.m. - 2004-07-03
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
Other diaries: > |
