Love is an engraved invitation to grief.

There are all kinds of ways for a relationship to be tested even broken some irrevocably its the endings were unprepared for.

No matter how bad your heart is broken the world doesnt stop for your grief.

But what was there to sayOnly that there were tears. Only that Quietness and Emptiness fitted together like stacked spoons. Only that there was a snuffling in the hollows at the base of a lovely throat. Only that a hard honey-colored shoulder had a semicircle of teethmarks on it. Only that they held each other close long after it was over. Only that what they shared that night was not happiness but hideous grief.Only that once again they broke the Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much.

She fit her head under his chin and he could feel her weight settle into him. He held her tight and words spilled out of him without prior composition. And this time he made no effort to clamp them off. He told her about the first time he had looked on the back of her neck as she sat in the church pew. Of the feeling that had never let go of him since. He talked to her of the great waste of years between then and now. A long time gone. And it was pointless he said to think how those years could have been put to better use for he could hardly have put them to worse. There was no recovering them now. You could grieve endlessly for the loss of time and the damage done therein. For the dead and for your own lost self. But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. And those old ones knew a thing or two and had some truth to tell Inman said for you can grieve your heart out and in the end you are still where you are. All your grief hasnt changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. Youre left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is go on or not. But if you go on its knowing you carry your scars with you. Nevertheless over all those wasted years he had held in his mind the wish to kiss her on the back of her neck and now he had done it. There was a redemption of some kind he believed in such complete fulfillment of a desire so long deferred.

I went to a tattoo parlor and had YES written onto the palm of my left hand and NO onto my right palm what can I say it hasnt made my life wonderful its made life possible when I rub my hands against each other in the middle of winter I am warming myself with the friction of YES and NO when I clap my hands I am showing my appreciation through the uniting and parting of YES and NO I signify book by peeling open my hands every book for me is the balance of YES and NO even this one my last one especially this one. Does it break my heart of course every moment of every day into more pieces than my heart was made of I never thought of myself as quiet much less silent I never thought about things at all everything changed the distance that wedged itself between me and my happiness wasnt the world it wasnt the bombs and burning buildings it was me my thinking the cancer of never letting go is ignorance bliss I dont know but its so painful to think and tell me what did thinking ever do for me to what great place did thinking ever bring me I think and think and think Ive thought myself out of happiness one million times but never once into it.

Every widow wakes one morning perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving to realize she slept a good nights sleep and will be able to eat breakfast and doesnt hear her husbands ghost all the time but only some of the time. Her grief is replaced with a useful sadness. Every parent who loses a child finds a way to laugh again. The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens. Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-grandchildrens will be. But we learn to live in that love.

So its true when all is said and done grief is the price we pay for love.

But grief makes a monster out of us sometimes . . . and sometimes you say and do things to the people you love that you cant forgive yourself for.

But when I do feel all the strength go out of me and I fall to my knees beside the table and I think I cry then or at least I want to and everything inside me screams for just one more kiss one more word one more glance one more.