Interlude on Loss

When you lose someone you love, you feel like the world should move differently, alter its form in some way. Even in those moments when you wouldn’t have been in that person’s presence - driving to the train station in the early morning, standing alone in the shower, sitting in an afternoon meeting, brushing your teeth - you feel as if the universe has shifted in some way, and those otherwise mundane moments which would not typically have given rise to thoughts or connections with your loved one all of a sudden feel as if they are suddenly unfamiliar, heavier in some way, that the person you lost somehow changes the way your toothbrush feels on your teeth. They are present in death in ways they wouldn't have been in life.

But the world, despite your opinions, doesn’t change. People shuffle on, come and go, stop to grab coffee in the morning and a six pack on their way home as if nothing catastrophic has happened, as if there isn't actually a hole in the universe. Only your world has changed, splitting off from the rest. You long to experience the mundane again, just one more time, you tell yourself. But this time, you won’t just get up and leave for the office, leaving her sleeping soundly in your bed. This time, you’ll stay put, sit in the kitchen and drink coffee together, hear each other breathe, laugh, chatter about nothing in particular. This time you'll stay put, in that moment, because this will be the last coherent conversation you'll have, the last time you'll hear her exhale without a death rattle. 

But the heaviness returns, and you take the next shaky step forward.