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I was so distraught yesterday that I thought it was Friday.

There are moments in life, brief moments, when you hear the most shrill and terrifying screams.  Every nerve in your body seems to soak in the agony of the one in pain.  Then the moment is over and time moves on in confusing silence—all is calm and still.  In these collective moments, when everything returns to routine, you can still hear the echo of that piercing scream only it’s louder than before.  Perhaps that’s the problem, because the scream has come and gone, no one else hears it…but you.  Even the ones who watch from a distance must grieve.

Since we were first married
Seventeen years have past.
Suddenly I looked up and she was gone.
She said she would never leave me.
My temples are turning white.
What have I to grow old for now?
At death we will be together in the tomb.
Now I am still alive,
And my tears flow without end. ~ Mei Yao Ch’en (1002 – 1060)
 
From: One Hundred Poems from the Chinese (pg. 45)
 

And no one ever told me about the laziness of grief.  Except at my job—where the machine seems to run on much as usual—I loathe the slightest effort.  Not only writing but even reading a letter is too much.  Even shaving.  What does it matter now whether my check is rough or smooth?  They say an unhappy man wants distractions—something to take him out of himself.  Only as a dog-tired man wants an extra blanket on a cold night; he’d rather lie there shivering than get up and find one.  It’s easy to see why the lonely become untidy, finally, dirty and disgusting.

From: A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis (pg. 5)