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like a gift from heaven, I had to ask her to repeat the
sentence because I didn’t understand what she was saying.
•
The problem occurs when what you most feared happens
and you don’t die. This proves really surprising. You’re not
yet thinking of killing yourself, because, naturally, you
imagine that dying of love is a slow, slow thing, and you’re
waiting for the death throes to kick in. The shock is so great
that at times you have to look at yourself in the mirror to
believe it: You’re amazed that your body has emerged
unscathed from such inner devastation. I catch a glimpse of
myself pushing a cart in a shopping center with mirrored
walls, and the contrast between what I see and what I feel is
striking. Apparently, I am a living a person who walks
around and pushes a cart. My face too is quite normal: a
distraught grimace, true, but it’s a whole face, not falling to
pieces, not decomposing. The body is here too, solid, still
standing. And even though I steady myself on the cart, I
appear to be the one who is pushing it. Mirrors are
deceptive, they silence pain. The body silences pain. The
body is preserved. How can such a divorce exist? How can a
stupid little blood clot kill you and yet grief like this does
not?
•