Lessons of Grief
Amy Butcher describes the experience of mourning a person she barely knew. An excerpt from Butcher’s memoir-in-progress:
“This is what happens now. I feel sadness about everything. I have no idea, of course, what Emily did or did not see, because of course I have no reason to mourn a woman I barely knew.
“‘It’s not like you were friends,’ someone told me once. ‘So it’s scary, sure—that proximity—but you don’t have a claim in all this sadness.’
“As if sadness is an entity one seeks desperately to call one’s own.”
Sick
The writer pays a visit to a friend:
“I visit him on Tuesday nights at the only time they’ll let me see him. I show the receptionist my driver’s license, confirm my social security number and home address, and sign my name on a dotted line.
“‘Relationship?’ I’m always asked.
“‘Friend,’ I always say.
“The woman—it is the same woman every time—looks, at first, disinterested. She doesn’t even bother to raise her head. She types my name into her computer—click click, click click—but when she finds me, her face lights up.
“‘Oh, there you are,’ she says, smiling, as if it’s possible I’ve disappeared.”
