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.

You can grieve a breakup, too, and grieve someone’s absence from your life, but when someone dies, it’s soul-deep. An impossible-to-grasp, endless absence not just from you, but from the entire world. You won’t run into them by accident in the supermarket. You can’t stalk them on social media. Your best friend won’t furnish you with gossip about their next steps. There’s just nothing. Forever.

“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.”

“The point is, it’s your life. Your decision. Your timing. You might resist it now, but you’ll know the moment when it comes, and not before. And then you’ll realize the bigger risk is not taking a risk.”

This is not a fork in the road, I realize. It’s just the road. There’s no Story A and Story B. There’s one, imperfect, meandering direction.