I’ve known grief. First when my father died. World shattering that was. Then my mother, years later. Not as world shattering because I knew I could survive it. I would survive it.

So I’ve known grief. I know how it rips at you, and how the tears are capable of surprise attacks. How to choke them and shove them into that dark hole that’s opened in your chest. That hole is deep, but tears are many, and so it overflows from time to time.

In the hospital room, watching her, or rather, watching her body… that hole was just being excavated in me. The claws of new grief digging in, the wounds they made still fresh. I was physically weak and sick. Symptoms of shock, I think. It took about an hour before I could stop crying. I doubted I’d have more than five minutes before the next wave, so it had to be now. I left the body of my wife in the bed, and walked outside. In the green room, there was a young boy waiting for news of his mother, who he would never see again. Our only son.

How was I going to tell him?