NOTHING TERRIBLE HAPPENED TODAY

Dear Delyara, My husband died eight months ago. Since then, every day has contained something painful—even the good ones. A song in the supermarket. His mug in the cupboard. A form asking for marital status. Today was different. I woke up and did not cry before getting out of bed. I ate toast. I took the bus into town. I bought socks. A stranger held the door for me. I laughed at something the cashier said, and the laugh did not immediately turn into guilt. In the afternoon, I sat in a café and finished an entire cup of tea while it was still hot. Nothing extraordinary happened. That is why I’m writing. Grief had convinced me that ordinary life was gone forever. Today, for several hours, I was not surviving a tragedy. I was simply a woman buying socks and drinking tea on a rainy Tuesday. Tonight I miss him. But today was good. I had forgotten those two truths could live in the same day.