This isn’t my story to tell. But I’ll trespass because it blankets the lines of odd convergences of the things we all experience. Regard it as fiction and find whatever value that words can convey.

She seemed to melt against the wall, her head down, with a cell phone pressed against her ear. “Margaret died this morning,” she said, her voice flatter then the plains of Iowa. It was the flatness that conveyed an overwhelming emotion behind her words. Numbness, like a whisper, sometimes telegraphs greater information.

He stopped and was about to ask her what she needed. A woman walked up to her and put her hand on her shoulder as she ended the phone call.

“She’s in a better place,” the late arrival told her. Though he looked indirectly at her, he watched her face wrinkle with conflicting emotions. He could read her mind.

They spoke a few sentences back and forth. The woman returned her verbal volleys with diminished enthusiasm and volume.

As the late arrival walked away, he asked her what she needed. “To be about 200 miles from here. None of these people  knew my Aunt.”

Because it’s what he does, he hugged her. He wasn’t going to add vacuous words.

When he stepped back and away from her, she told him that she didn’t think she could stand listening to people talk about her aunt.

“Then don’t. The person you loved is gone. Your debt is paid.” He didn’t quite say it in so few words because he was surprisingly caught off guard by nervousness. His entire morning was a bout of unidentifiable anxiety. His arms still quivered with the exertion expended to quell what had saved insurmountable at the time.

“I hate it when people say someone’s in a better place.” The irritation in her voice was evident.

“They mean well. None of us know what to say. I put my foot in my mouth a lot. We’re not thinking about where they are. We’re thinking about going on without them. That’s what grief is.”

She looked at him directly. “That’s a really good way to put it.”

“I learned the hard way. When people are grieving, they say and do almost anything.”

She nodded. He walked away, hoping that time would warp for her. Time is one of the few things that helps. But sometimes, it remained fresh forever.

He wondered how the universe sometimes finds a way to overlap lessons that superficially have nothing in common.

X
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