Can I Sustain One More Blow from Grief?!

The truth is I don’t have a choice

Merre Larkin
5 min readJun 5, 2024
Photo by Rainhard Wiesinger on Unsplash

Grief is exhausting. I transcend the sadness for a brief respite only to have it come crashing back into me with a vengeance.

This time it happened a few days prior to the three-month mark since my father passed. I had a vision of him laughing at dinner with us, his children and grandchildren. I heard his masculine chuckle that always signified how happy he was to be with all of us. I took for granted that happiness he emanated, the happiness that being with us brought him.

I think we all take for granted the joy we have with our loved ones in the moment. Of course we do. We certainly can’t sit in that moment thinking about a time when we won’t have it. How morbid and self-defeating that would be. And then we wouldn’t enjoy it.

But the time does come when we don’t have it. And we can’t help but wish we’d appreciated those moments more than we think we did.

Or at least that’s what I’m wishing. Those moments of warmth and joy flash randomly into my mind, blindsiding me like a two-ton truck as I’m driving along, oblivious, in a MINI Cooper or one of those little Smart cars. Because I’m achingly aware that I won’t have those moments anymore.

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Merre Larkin
Merre Larkin

Written by Merre Larkin

Writer of memoir, essays, fiction, and poetry. Life transitions/writing coach: www.larkinworks.com. Marathoner. Avid reader. Here to share, here to learn.

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