The Last Love Note

by Emma Grey

That’s the problem with grief. It’s not packed tidily in a box that you can bring out in appropriate, private moments and sort through. It’s threaded inconveniently through everything.

He steps into the shower and sits down beside me, propping himself against the wall under the water, suit pants wet, white business shirt clinging to his body like mine is to me, water dripping off his dark hair as he looks at me in silence.

This got me. Just being there with her. Experiencing what she was.

“Take it from a very old woman. No amount of sadness is going to bring your husband back. Did he want you to be happy when he was alive?” “Blissfully.” She smiles. “Don’t take that away from him, then, in death.”

If you can’t lose your head a little after you’ve been dragged through hell, when can you?

Brand new. Years old.

It was new and old at the same time.

This is not a fork in the road, I realize. It’s just the road.

Love this. It's just a road. A path we sometimes have to take.

even in loss, there’s so much more to life.

love outlives death. It holds steady through despair.