Good Grief

Suddenly what to do with the rest of my life and what shirt to wear became equally daunting decisions.

On my way home from work that night, I get in an accident: I’m broadsided by the holidays.

How could I have managed to lose my husband, my job, my house, and my ass all in one year?

The only thing worse than being widowed is being widowed and single.

How will I know if I really even like Drew Ellis? I’m so eager for intimacy, I would date a tree.

Maybe she needs me to be her basket case.

time. I think I know how the mother of a teenage daughter must feel. Like an indispensable annoyance.

Seven thirty-five. The only thing worse than being a widow and being single is being a widow and being single and being stood up.

I’ve decided it’s important to love the life you get and somehow learn to let go of the life you dreamed of.

The problem with Thanksgiving is that the pressure for the meal and the conversation to be perfect is daunting.

It’s been a long time since I’ve dated, but I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to do a face plant on your suitor’s gurney on the first date.

Ruth is a healthful vegetarian and I’ve been on the Godiva plan.

how it’s possible to be both lonely and terrified of social encounters at the same time.

Even female. For so long I’ve felt like an androgynous lump. Grief on a stick.

Instead, they’d smile and speak softly, as though I were going to be all right, as though I weren’t wearing one navy and one black loafer. As though I weren’t driving down the street with my purse on the roof of the car or leaving the oven on preheat all night.

Simone plays with her jack-in-the-box—an annoying toy that plays “Pop Goes the Weasel” until you’d like to pop the thing with a hammer.

You constantly try to be optimistic when someone’s sick, to look on the bright side, even if the bright side is only their ability to swallow a spoonful of applesauce or walk to the bathroom.

I decided the best way to lose weight is to stop buying food.

Al swoons, closing his eyes and swaying. Suddenly I can imagine why Ruth lowered her standards for Tony. If this is the alternative!

rushes to my side on the sofa. “Let me give you a massage.” He reaches for my shoulders. “No.

Finally the theater lights dim, cloaking the audience in darkness. A hushed wave of throats clearing and cough drop wrappers rustling crosses the theater.

she speeds up, swinging her arms and huffing, her scarf flying in the wind behind her. “Al!” she screeches. Al sinks to the floor of the car, the upper half of his body folded over the seat. “Shit! My wife!” “Your wife? Your dead wife?” “She’s not exactly dead,

There should be a rule for grief groups: forty-watt bulbs only.

I’ve joined the grief group because . . . well, because I sort of did a crazy thing. I drove my Honda through our garage door.

Dr. Rupert thinks the group will help me move from denial to anger to bargaining to depression to acceptance to hope to lingerie to housewares to gift wrap.

Would it be all right if I threw dishes at my former mother-in-law?

Still, dry eyes for me. Maybe I need the remedial grief group. Maybe there’s a book, The Idiot’s Guide to Grief. Or Denial for Dummies.

the words I once learned during an office safety drill: Pull, aim, squeeze, sweep. Pull, aim, squeeze, sweep.

I got stuck on a problem.” Crystal flops onto her back and talks to the ceiling. “Besides, you’re the one who wrecked the place with the fire extinguisher.” I snatch a towel from the bathroom and swab the carpet, tapping and then pounding the foam.

As public relations manager at Gorgatech, I’m supposed to improve the image of a scrotal patch product that’s prescribed to men whose testosterone production is off-kilter on account of illness. A scrotal patch!