Someday, Maybe

by Onyi Nwabineli

And because the world insists on continuing to turn even though your grief necessitates it pause, if only temporarily, eventually, inevitably and despite your best efforts at avoidance,

But grief torches your capacity for both sympathy and empathy. I am nothing but a selfish collection of exposed nerve endings.

no easy way to articulate what it means for your loved ones to worry that your person’s ability to love you is limited by their inability to comprehend many of your lived experiences.

not operate in a silo; it sucks everything and everyone into a vortex and the only way to escape it if you are not directly affected is to distance yourself from

Grief is not neat. Pain is not dignified. Both are ugly, visceral things.

You learned how to do it for a while, but then you met Quentin and seemed to think there were no more battles to fight. You’ve been taking a back seat in your own life for the longest time.

“You’ll be happy again. He wasn’t the author of that. It’ll just be different.”

closure is not promised. It is a gift, and my husband chose to keep it from me.