Story Profile: Grief

“Grief” is a story about a young woman named Melissa who is attempting to deal with the various stages of the grief process after the loss of her life partner. I wrote this story in an attempt to highlight the grief process, drawing on and inspired by my own experiences with grief and loss, the experiences of close friends, and my work in the field of human services and grief and loss counseling.

 

I turned and left the coffee shop, went back out into the cold. I headed in the direction of my apartment, but I knew I wasn't going home; the idea was to get away from Susan, to find someplace where she wasn't likely to be, but where? She'd lived in this city her entire life, her ghost floated over every street corner, she was in every window in every building, every brick and inch of mortar, every moment of the sidewalks. She was in the snow, in the rain and sunshine, in the leaves laying dead in the gutters. I'd grown up in Darlington too, but the city had always belonged to her.

I stopped at a convenience store and bought a pack of cigarettes, thought about getting a bottle. Who would know? But I couldn't do it; for me drinking was slow suicide, and if I was going to do something like that, I'd have to do it quickly.

Back out on Olsen Street, getting closer to home. I came up to a bus stop, sat on the bench and lit a cigarette, my mind blank. I tried not to think, tried not to see myself the way other people saw me, or would see me if they knew what was in my heart: just a poor dumb dyke still pining away for her long lost love. It was strange; everyone experiences pain in love, everyone loses somebody, but how many people really make the effort to empathize? I'd lost more than all the lovers in the world. I'd lost the rest of my life. Who could even understand that?