A week ago this morning, I opened the newspaper with the hollowness in my stomach and heart that my mother's obituary was printed inside. As I drove to my brother's house that morning, I looked at the man on the street corner selling newspapers and thought that my mother's obituary was printed inside those. Part of me wanted to buy all of his papers and hide them in my car, hiding the news, somehow making it untrue. I looked at the newspaper stand outside a convenience store and thought the same thing. For three days, I felt a connection to the morning newspaper, thinking about it in hotel rooms, on airplanes, left discarded in a bus seat, in office lobbies, or park trashcans. Thinking about my mother in Section B.
On Friday, I opened the newspaper with the hollowness in my stomach and heart that my mother's obituary was not printed inside.
I did not go to work yesterday, though I had every intention of doing so. When I woke, it all seemed too normal to me, too unaffected.
Today, I unfolded the newspaper and let it be simply a newspaper. Today, I return to work. On this Tuesday, my mother is not in Section B.
3 comments:
The feelings you write about are so familiar to me. Truth be known, returning to work is probably the best thing you could do right now. Even if work suddenly seems unimportant in the grand scheme of things, it'll keep you putting one foot in front of the other until that feels normal again.
I hope you have a good day.
It is simply.beautiful how you write of your thoughts and feelings in this entry. I too had felt and thought those things, but was too embarrassed to admit it, thinking I was the only one.
Good for you. Definitely a "super" Tuesday. Hang in there...That brown dog need you!
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