Good as Dead

by Susan Walter

I’m sorry for your loss? Why do people say that? The loss is the least of your problems. It’s the pain that follows we should be sorry for. A loss is an event, a moment in time. But grief is relentless—a simmering flame that can be stoked by a whisper. It burrows down in the deep recesses of your heart, then surges up like bile, filling your lungs until it hurts to breathe.

The stay-at-home mom had not evolved much beyond a wild animal—hunt, feed, rest, repeat. I was the busy lioness, in constant search of our next meal, while my male lion husband lounged in his cave.