Nothing had prepared me for grief’s labyrinthine complexity, its enduring nature, its serpentine permanence. Nothing. Nothing had previously educated me about the fact that grief can’t be bypassed or replaced with platitudes, “positivity,” or psalms. Grief commands attention. Grief demands time. And grief isn’t to be tamed or tampered with. It is to be traveled, investigated, lavished, even. Studied. It doesn’t give us much of a choice in the matter.
