Speed Grieving (The One, #6)

by Allison Ellis

could almost hear echoes of the conversations still lingering between the cubicles: “He just dropped dead at the ferry dock.” “Oh my God, really? Sad.” “I like your top by the way. It’s super cute.”

Grief has a way of creating both a numbing cushion for the grieving and a buffer for the rest of society. People don’t want to get too close, lest they catch a whiff of the pain.

Still, it was 2003, and I’d been winging it with web content since 1995. Not knowing what I was doing and doing it anyway had become my norm.

I would not identify as a widow. I was merely a married working mother who just happened to be between husbands. It was a delusional strategy, and I knew it and I didn’t care.

I was a naive twenty-five-year-old, but I was adult enough to recognize my good fortune in finding someone who I was not only incredibly attracted to, but who I also found easy to be around.

This does sound like real love.

Now when I looked out at Osprey, tied to a mooring buoy in front of our house on Vashon Island, I was reminded of all that had become adrift.

“I love you; you’re doing such a good job. I’ll never leave you,” I’d hear him say. While we’d previously had our ups and downs, now Gregg was a perfect angel.

Dead people can be perfect.

People often describe grief as a roller coaster with all its ups and downs, but really it’s more like a Ferris wheel: circular in its insidiousness, with no hope of actually moving forward until you get off.

witnessing their grief made me acutely aware of mine—so

We weren’t supposed to compare our lives, but it was impossible not to compare. We were far too vulnerable and broken to be concerned with evolved human emotions like tact or empathy.

My sense was that we all seemed to be doing well and falling apart, sometimes in the same sentence.

Absolutely. I feel this.

I’d never received so much praise for my appearance and been so miserable at the same time.

I liked the dating a lot. It was fun to go out to new restaurants and meet new people, but I never felt any sparks. Looking back, the experience was kind of like going to a mall where every store promised a pleasant and enjoyable Choose Your Own Adventure, but instead of actually exploring any of them, I chose to do figure eights in the parking lot.

My wants and needs came from a place of desperation and loss rather than self-awareness and a willing heart.

Once in a while, I’ll take a break to look out over the harbor where Osprey was once moored, listen to the birds squawk overhead, and feel a swell of grief rise within me. But mostly I’ll experience a wave of gratitude that I’m no longer in a place where I’m wishing for what once was nor teetering toward a deadline-fueled future. I’m exactly where I want to be.