time doesn't stop

a close friend's mother died (unexpectedly) this morning. jeff called me on my cell phone when i was in the car taking the kids to pre-school. a millionth of a second before that call, everything in my life was normal. and a millionth of a second after he said that tessa's mother died, nothing was right. nothing was where it should be. i'm not close to my friend's mother but i know her and see her at birthday parties and at other family functions. i'm sad that she's gone but i'm devastated for my friend. i don't know what to say or what to bring (flowers? food?) or where to go. i went to the ER at the hospital and met them in the consultation room. (consultation room. what a glossed over, benign term for what happens in that room.)

there was nothing i could do. we sat around and talked about everyday things (dave's new playstation 3). i've never been this close to grief, this soon. it was only a few hours after she died and they hadn't left the hospital yet. i thought grief would look different but it doesn't. it looks like life...a part of life just like the birth of your first child or the 80th birthday celebration of your great uncle. life was going on all around us and we just had to go along with it.

time doesn't stop.