Grief Snippet - Journal Entry 5/30/22

This is a quick passage that I thought of for a story that I wanted to write at the time. The context of this is that the main character's brother passed before the start of the story. The passage talks about the main character's grief. This struck a chord for me because I didn't expect to capture the way I have felt grief in such a spontaneous way - I wrote this on a whim during class one day.

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At first, I didn't feel anything. All was normal until I would be reminded that he was gone. Like when his last letter finally arrived at my home (it was just blabbering about new renovations to his house). Or whenever I checked my notebook I would see the note "meet Percy for breakfast." No matter how many times I noticed these daily reminders, it would always feel like the rug was pulled out from under me. How could this be? How could this happen to me? To him? To us?

These reminders would clump together into a ball, becoming denser and denser, sinking deeper into my stomach. Now, it's so heavy I'm surprised my legs haven't broken yet. Everywhere I go it drags me down, making things I do slow and arduous. Sometimes the weight overtakes me and I simple do nothing, and let my surroundings fall into disrepair. The only thing I can do during these times is, if time allows, cry.