dulcetly...notes on a bookish life

my parents on their wedding day, 1973 Shortly after losing my mother seven years ago I was looking up strategies on dealing with the sort of grief and loneliness that engendered, and found one of the most apt descriptions I've seen. Imagine you are a box with your grief inside you. It's like a giant ball that takes up nearly all the room inside, and it hurts every time the ball touches the outer walls (which because its so big, it's pretty much doing all the time.) But the ball gets smaller and smaller over time, still rattling around and occasionally bouncing off a side or brushing against it.  You can go several days without even thinking about it, but move the box wrong, and its there, bruising the side.  Mothers Day is a day when the box feels small and the ball seems larger than usual. Every May, I carry in the grief box and its feels heavy and full.  I caught sight of her in an image today and it felt like someone stabbed me. Not that the deaths of both of my parent...