I Thought You Said This Would Work

by Ann Garvin

anyone who knew me knew I was a huge emo-barfer. I tended to cry and bargain with God and get barf up in my nose and hair. Then, for days, it was all I talked about. Like barfing was news.

“We’re odd, we humans,” she would say. “We know people die, but we act astonished when it happens. What is astonishing about death is our certainty that it isn’t going to happen to us or anyone we know without some kind of warning. And, we live our life doing stupid things like gossiping, when we should spend all our days planting flowers.”

This was the comfort of love. It didn’t cure cancer or reduce the pain of childbirth, but it cloaked lovers, friends, and family in an embrace that stretched far and wide and was supremely difficult to break, despite our best idiotic efforts.