GRIEF

GRIEF
Grief, if that is the right word for the emotions I'm feeling, has odd habits.

It sleeps for hours at a time only to waken at a completely unpredictable moment. I hadn't cried at all, or not much, during the first "meeting" when she told me she was leaving.

During the second meeting, when we were discussing bank accounts, how much of the furniture she would take and whether she would take one cat or both, I didn't shed a tear until she asked if I wanted to keep one or two of her paintings.

That makes me weep a little now, but mostly I've been able to hold myself and what little dignity I have left fairly intact, but this morning,
after forgetting my cellphone again and having to go back home and get it and
after returning to the turnstiles only to have my MetroCard rejected as "just used,
after asking the sleepy eyed attendent how long I would have to wait before I could use the card, knowing I would miss the next train and be late,
after he said
"I've seen you around, go ahead and use the gate."

... .
This one small act of kindness broke open all my resistance and I had a nice, long cry on the train.

The train is a good place to cry. For one thing, crowded or empty, the other people in the car with you don't give a ratsass what you are doing so long as it doesn't do anything that might stop or slow down the train. So you can cry or you can yodel while shaking a can with three dimes in it, you can be a three hundred pound man wearing a giant sunflower costume or two very tattooed women chained together at the waist, New York commuters will contine to work on their third Sudoko of the day, thank you very much.

For another, if you are wearing headsets, the others can't tell if you are crying at the last chapter of "The Great Gatsby" or because of something else. It could be some real tragedy in your own life or you might have just read in the Daily News about the little girl swept away from her church group after falling into the Niagra River.

For me, it was grief.

I'm pretty sure that is the right word for the feelings you have when your world, previously small and tidy and a bit boring, is melting and shattering, full of flames and ice and tears.

Joe(both cats. so they won't be lonely.)Nation