The work of grief
Your working day starts
When you open your eyes
And arrive at the office of deep loss
You sit at your stomach-sinking desk
And turn on the reality computer
Where the welcome message flashes
“Yes it’s true. She’s not coming back”
You wait while the system logs in
Tears – check
Anger – check
Nausea – check
Loneliness – check
You open the I-miss-her-so-much file
And get to work.
Mid morning it’s the overwhelm meeting
It is badly chaired
I-just-can’t talks too much
How-will-I-manage and I-can’t-cope keep butting in
You try to make suggestions
Offer tentative solutions
But everyone speaks at the same time
And the meeting overruns
Eventually, back at your desk,
Email alerts start to ping through
If-only-I’d needs your urgent attention
And I-wish-we-had wants a quick chat
You click dismiss
And will get back to them later
You go to the sadness canteen
For a quick lunch of
Sudden uncontrollable sobbing
Then the boss wants a word
You are doing well, generally,
At putting-on-a-brave-face
And pretending-everything-is-ok
But you are underperforming
On managing-other-people’s-grief;
The moving-on-with-life report
Was due last week
You really need to make a start on that.
The afternoon meeting with weariness
Has to be cut short
By a call from agitation
Who doesn’t really know
What she wants from you
But won’t get off the phone.
Afterwards, you have to tell self-pity
To get on with her own work
And stop bothering you.
The computer has a bug
Sometimes, without warning,
A video from the archives pops up
And starts playing
In vivid detail.
Today, it is when-the-police-came-with-the-news
You click to close
But can’t fix the bug.
As the day wanes
You turn back to the emails
And spend some time answering
I-wish-we-had
Though you know the answers
Are inadequate
You’re aware suppressed-rage has been wanting
To catch you all day
But you need to work on the moving-on report
So she waits for another time.
The working day finishes
But you still have the night shift to come
Of fragmented sleep, distressed dreams and longing
And you wish you could have a holiday
From this lifelong career
You never asked to have.