"It’s so breathtaking, I can’t inhale" (Benson Bruno, Evergreens are Prudish)

N's brother died of an undiagnosed heart condition four months ago.  Since then she has quit her job, packed up her entire house, and moved provinces to be nearer to her parents.  She says she isn't coping well, she says she is lost in grief.  And she asks why all those books about grief never tell you when the grief will stop.  I know why they don't tell you -- it's because grief does not have an end.  You can shift the weight around like you would with a heavy bag so it hurts less in one place, but that means it invariably puts pressure somewhere else.  In some places the pain is sharp and immobilizing; in others it is dull and floats a little below the surface.  I don't tell her this, because I know it is not helpful.

If I died tomorrow of an undiagnosed heart condition, the physicians that examined my heart would find rings in it -- like with trees -- some far apart when I was happiest and growing toward the sun.  And tighter ones, knotted, in the months and years when frost was unrelenting and I did not thrive.  It might actually be those tight knots that caused the undiagnosed heart condition in the first place. 

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