And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.
I was halfway up the stairs from the first to the second floor of my home when I realized. I stopped on the step.
It was eight o’clock in the evening. I hadn’t cried that day.
I leaned against the railing and reeled my mind backwards. When was the last time I remembered crying?
Sunday. On Sunday, I first drove to a grief support group meeting. When I got there, there was no one in the parking lot. I wandered around the church, trying every door. All were locked. I felt utterly abandoned. I couldn’t even get to a grief support group! (I found out later, when the facilitator called me, that there are two churches with the same name in that town. My GPS brought me to the wrong one.)
I cried in the car, then pulled myself together and told myself I should go get the grocery shopping done. Grocery shopping, and cooking, used to be done by Michael. I hate grocery shopping, and I don’t know how to cook.
I reminded myself that there was a Packers game that afternoon, so at least the grocery store should be mercifully free of crowds and quiet. Instead, when I got to the store, the parking lot was almost full. Inside, it was a madhouse, people and shopping carts everywhere, the volume so high, I couldn’t even hear the muzak.
The Packers apparently played early in the afternoon. Now, everyone was here.
Every aisle was like a traffic jam. Kids were screaming, parents were yelling, customers were getting pushy as they tried to get through and get through fast. I had to go to a back corner several times just to breathe, to ward off a panic attack. When I finally got to the check-out, the line with the fewest number of people in front of me was six deep.
Six deep. Just like they say a grave is six feet deep. Six feet under.
And loss was all around me again.
I got out of line, ran for the bathrooms, parked my cart (please, nobody take it and make me start over!), and ran into a stall. And cried.
Awful. The whole thing was awful. But there, on my stairs, I realized that day was the last time I cried. And that was three days before.
Since Michael died, I haven’t had a single day without tears. I haven’t had a single day when I haven’t thought, How am I going to do this? Until now. When I suddenly went for three days without tears, and three days of just moving ahead, one step after another, after a veritable storm of tears.
That day, three days ago in the empty church parking lot and in the grocery store, the thing I remember thinking, over and over again, repeating it to myself, is “This is never going to be over. I am never going to be okay again.”
Standing on my stairs, as I counted the days without tears, I was flooded with a sense of hope.
Maybe I will be okay again.
Being a writer, I noticed the tense that my thoughts took. I will be okay again. Not I am okay now. Not yet. But that will be was such a big step from never.
Climbing the rest of the way upstairs was much easier. I had a lighter step.
And yes, being a writer, I saw the metaphor in that too.
That was Wednesday (yesterday). I didn’t make it through today without tears (I’ve been dealing with my health insurance company, my doctor, and the drugstore – something I would have typically left to Michael, because he was better at yelling at people!), but I know, from that moment on the step, that moment of hope, that moment of happiness, that this doesn’t mean that never is in force.
Since Michael’s death, when people have asked me if I’m okay, my answer has been a steady, “It depends on the moment.” I’m changing my answer. It’s now, “No, but I will be.”
And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.


You nailed this one. We will be okay.
Just gotta keep reminding myself.