Grief As a Curious Thing.

It is Summer.

Nine years is a long time. If I had given birth when he'd died, I'd be mommy to a adolescent  now. If I had been a freshman, I'd be graduate school now . Most of the time, nine years feel like a long time and that terrible day is just shadows and whispers. Some days, nine years fall away and that terrible day is suddenly so very now.

Grief is a curious thing. You never truly understand it until it happens to you. And when it does, it is something you will never wish on anyone, not even your worst enemy.

It isn't your regular broken heart, which is insanely painful. But you get over a broken heart, believe it or not. And I do believe a broken heart is a good thing, a beautiful thing, because broken hearts are split open, allowing more love and understanding and compassion to come in, and the heart becomes bigger and stronger as it heals. (im a believer of this now)

The grieving heart is also a broken heart but the heart that has lost someone to death, it never heals completely. You think it does, you think you're done, then one day, the strains of Moon River, a whiff of CK Euphoria, a scene from Dolphy's movies, the facade of Megamall A before that new parking building was (mercifully) built in front of it... A little thing, a big thing, they always sneak up on you and BOOM! You unravel.

One cruel day, I was walking along happily from the supermarket on my way home to the loves of my life, when across the street, I saw a man who looked and walked like Chio. Before I knew it, I had crossed the street, running, dodging cars, calling, "Chio! Chio!" even as my brain screamed, "He's dead! He's dead!"

The man turned. Of course he wasn't Chio. And I laughed, my hand on my suddenly hollow chest. "Sorry! I'm sorry, you look like my friend."

And he smiled, "Oh! Tell him I think he's handsome!"

And I laughed again, a little too breathlessly, "I will. I will tell him."

But I don't. I can't.