T17 - Loss - C 5

I know a couple of people who lost their spouses after only a few years. They died in car accidents. My friends were emotionally dead for a couple of years. Memories seemed to be their companions and memorabilia their textures. After work they told me they'd come home and sit around with images of their partners floating through their minds. Each of them went through periods during which they’d caress and smell their partner’s clothes especially the favorite trademark items, the ones that hadn't been cleaned when they died. Pictures took my friends on constant journeys to places they’d been. Eventually they pulled out of their hypnotic depressions and became more or less normal again. Their grief was a strange process to watch. I don’t look forward to it.