Grief, Endings and Release

What mourning work can hold And the first days, including the grief nobody expects you to feel.

• Mourning Work: What a Rite Can Hold and What It Cannot Undo The mug is still in the dish rack, upside down, where somebody left it to dry.
• The First Week: A Working for the Days Right After There are flowers in the hallway and nowhere to put them.
• Grief No One Expects You to Feel Somebody two desks over is laughing at a video on their phone, and the sound arrives from a long way off.

After a death The last box, the clothes, the empty chair, and the date that comes round.

• The Last Box: Clearing a House After a Death There is a dumpster in the driveway with a rolled carpet standing up out of it, and the neighbors have stopped looking out of their windows at it.
• Their Clothes Are Still in the Closet You open the closet door about four inches, and then you stand there.
• The Empty Chair: A Working for the First Holiday Without Them There is a chair at the table that nobody has moved and nobody has sat in.
• The First Samhain After a Death It is the first evening that is properly dark at five o"'clock, and you notice it standing at the sink.
• The Date That Comes Round Every Year The calendar on the kitchen wall is the free one from the garage, and the photograph for this month is a bridge somewhere in Scotland.
• When You Cannot Be at the Funeral It is one minute to two, and four hundred miles away a door is being held open at the back of a chapel.
• A Rite for an Animal You Buried The bowl is still on the kitchen floor, and it has been two days.
• Grief That Arrives Years Late The song comes on in the supermarket somewhere between the bread and the eggs, and you stop walking.

Grief without a death A life you were going to have, a faith you were raised in, a person still here.

• Mourning Someone Who Is Still Alive The phone lights up on the counter at seven in the morning with a small gray box in it.
• When the Person Is Here and Not Here She looks up when you come in, and her face does the thing it does for the woman who brings the tea.
• Letting Go of a Life You Were Going to Have The drawer sticks, the way it always has, and you have to lift it slightly to get it open.
• A Rite for a Pregnancy That Ended The parking lot outside the hospital is almost full, and someone is waiting for your space with their indicator on.
• Leaving the Faith You Were Raised In There is a building on the road into town, and you have not been inside it in four years.
• Leaving a Place for Good: A Rite for a City You Are Done With The bus comes at 7:12, the way it has come at 7:12 for six years.

Endings you choose Papers signed, a ring taken off, a friendship ended on purpose.

• The End of a Marriage: A Working for the Day the Papers Are Signed The letter came yesterday and it is still on the hall table, unopened, propped against the bowl where the keys go.
• Taking Off the Ring The light at the junction is red for a long time, and you catch your own hand in the mirror while you are waiting.
• Ending a Friendship That Has to End Sunday, twenty past eleven, and the phone is the only light in the room.
• The Friend You Do Not Speak to Anymore There is a photograph you have not deleted, and you know without looking where it sits in the roll.
• The Number You Cannot Bring Yourself to Delete You are looking for the plumber, and your thumb knows exactly where to speed up.

Setting it down Grudges, forgiveness that was never asked for, and letters never sent.

• The Grudge You Have Carried Long Enough Somebody says the name across a table, in the middle of a sentence about something else entirely.
• Forgiving Someone Who Never Said Sorry The water is too hot and you have been standing under it for eleven minutes.
• Letters You Will Never Send The pad is a cheap one, lined, with the perforations at the top, and the first line has been written three times.