Looking for the Easter Bunny

Death and Rebirth on Grief Avenue.

Easter 2015. My husband had been dead less than a year.

Your faithful correspondent was as slow as jello on a broken escalator. Sticky slow. Running on the moon kind of slow. Everyone - is - going - around - you - slow. That I was moving at all was a bit of a miracle, but I couldn’t seem to go faster than my thoughts, all of which were dull and mired in emotional mud.

I was sitting at the chiropractor, reading YES magazine, waiting my turn, when I met a young woman who had brought her cat with her. She'd picked up the cat at the vet, then came to the chiropractor for herself.

“Is your cat okay?” I asked, because I ask those things. You probably do too.

It was fine, she said. The cat had found and eaten an antidepressant and had to spend a night at the vet for observation to make sure she wasn't poisoned or going to have seizures. I nodded in complete understanding.

I've picked up a drug or two off the floor in my time and popped it my mouth. I get you, cat.

The young woman was giving details about her pet, then suddenly blurted out, "My husband died."

I shifted my attention from the cat to her. I reached over and gently touched her sleeve.

"Mine too." I said.

A woman sitting near us who was reading looked up, "I lost my 16-year-old daughter two years ago," she said softly. We all looked at each other with wide eyes, then we started to talk. Cancer. Cancer. Cancer.

Fucking cancer.