1. In the days that followed I thought about grief, how nothing and nobody can prepare you for it. People tell you their stories, but until you experience it for yourself you can’t possibly understand. There’s no going around it. Or under or over it. You’ve got to go through it. It will hit you in waves so enormous that you are smacked against the shore. It will permeate the very fabric of your life, so that everything you do is stained by it; every moment, good or bad, is steeped in sadness for a while. Even the nice moments, the achievements and successes, are tinged with the knowledge that someone or something is missing. And the first time that you smile or laugh, you catch yourself, because happiness feels so unfamiliar.
