I am so unsure of the allowance of grief. Can I really mourn someone I hardly knew any longer? Should I feel pained by lives I never led, with him, without him? In my mind, this is the bounty of grieving—that I can indulge all of the fantasies because they are now guaranteed, with violent finality, to never come. And yet, if grief does afford me all of this possibility, then why do I end up feeling so impoverished?
