angelbaby

There would be more time. I pictured myself moving through the quiet house. I saw myself in the garden – my face, my back, my hands changed by not saying anything to anyone day after day. I saw the sheets I would wash and hang out to dry and fold and put away. The short showers I would take. The short hair I would have. I would put on the same clothes every morning and hang them on a hook every night. I was an old woman who looked like an old man.

When I would leave the house, I would take my solitariness with me. I would roll down the grocery store aisles neither fast nor slow and put only a few items in my cart, not worrying about the cost of the cheese and sometimes buying eight of the same frozen meal. I would make no chitchat with clerks or retired neighbors. Sometimes I might accept a dinner invitation, and I would bring a gift for the host (sometimes a young couple new to the block, sometimes an old friend who had known me with you), but it would be a relief to everyone when I left without fail at exactly eight-thirty making no excuses.

I realise now that when I was playing these silent movies of life after our life, you were still there. You were sitting with me, the two of us alone in the theatre, still together. This sadness is not an empty church and not an empty house. It is the whole empty world and I am in it and it is in me. 

[…]

I wanted to grieve while I still had the solace of you. »

Oskar Zwintscher

That I fumble or fidget with when

I get told “I’m sorry for your loss.”

I can’t say Oh

It’s alright.

Oskar Zwintscher