A Letter to Grief

I didn’t single you out. I visit everyone in time.

Your time is right now, and I know you don’t want it to be.

Why now, you ask? When there was so much to look forward to? Why would I pay you a visit at this early season?

I don’t pick and choose like that. “Fair” isn’t a concept I associate with.

I visit everyone in time, but I don’t stay. I may stay for awhile, that’s true. Longer than you may want me to.

But I will move on, and so will you.

And when I come back in a different season, as I inevitably will, you will find a way to handle me once again. I was meant to make my rounds, and you were meant to withstand them.

That is the arrangement. That is nature. It is how it’s always been, and always will be.

So don’t brace yourself for my arrival with a clenched jaw and a stiff body. Allow me to move through you, loosely, with an understanding that this is the way of the world. No one has ever opted out of this, and you are no different.

Why should you be?

So when I come again, as I inevitably will, cast a knowing look at me and understand that we will be together for but a season, and then we will both be on our way.