I am terrible at grocery shopping. I have a list in hand, but it lacks many needed items and is in no discernable order. I start with an organized approach to the process, but I end up backtracking multiple times and changing my mind about what sounds good for the next several days and it is not uncommon that I end up back at home with still missing ingredients. I could solve all of this with better preparation, to be certain, but grocery shopping is a chore I hate, mainly for all the ways that it reminds me that I’m alone – James was the grocery shopper in this relationship. He was also the primary cook once we got married. Being at the store, and in fact, prepping any meal at all, is something I with to do as quickly and simply as possible so as to minimize the reminders.

And so it was that I found myself at Meijer on July 3rd, with every other last-minute American that lives near Kalamazoo, trying to get the essentials for the long weekend. Only I didn’t have to be there that day, I could have been there at any time, but my procrastination and reluctance had me now walking the crowded aisles, trying to navigate a relatively small shopping trip among the throngs of people heading on vacation, or getting ready for family gatherings and BBQs. Less than ideal, but a manifestation of my own making for certain.

I was in the produce department, the place where, on the rare occasion that James and I were at Meijer together, we had often split up to “divide and conquer” whatever remained of the list. Today, I had already picked up romaine, tomatoes and bananas and was choosing a handful of nectarines when I saw him. He was near the peppers, but was easy to spot for the hat he always wore and the beard I loved so much. I saw him. James. James. And then, as fast as my heart had leapt, it was shattered, for my brain said what my heart had failed to see – it wasn’t James, but just someone who looked enough like him to take my breath away.

I was not at all prepared for this. I don’t know if there’s anything that could have made me ready for such a tsunami of opposing emotions. He was there, and then just as quickly, I was suffocating in his loss all over again.

Had it not been for the cart in front of me, I would have crumbled to my knees. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe; I fought (and lost) to keep the tears at bay. As I rushed to the check-outs, I was employing every breathing technique I had ever learned or heard of. The man waiting in line ahead of me looked my way and I shook my head begging him not to ask if I was okay because I was the furthest from okay that I had been in months and I feared that one simply touch of sound or air would shatter the very fragile grasp I held on the world.

The three bags of groceries were all but shoved in the back seat and the cart returned to the corral with a shove while the tears rolled down my face. I wasn’t even in the driver’s seat before the sobs arose heavily from my chest and I sat and cried and cried and cried, grieving him all over again. And as if I wasn’t already drowning, among all the cars in the crowded lot, I saw the same man getting into a grey truck, remarkably like James’, just two unobstructed rows in front of me. It took conscious effort to not open my door and run to him, but my mind knew the devastation I would feel upon seeing him close enough to really know it wasn’t my James and kept my heart from opening the door.

My grief is an ocean that I am forever swimming in. Most days, lately at least, I feel like I am floating, softly, gently on the surface, as if on an inflated raft in a backyard pool. But there are moments, like this, when I am reminded of the vast, deep, dark ocean that surrounds me and the effort to remain afloat is barely manageable.

It is this tenuous grip, this fragile balance that makes walking through this world so difficult. It is knowing the power of the flood that is there, just beneath the surface, that scares me. His love brought me so much joy – so much joy – and I don’t want to live always feeling devastatingly sad when I am reminded of him, but I do not know how to stop feeling angry and confused and lost because he is gone.

I finally dried my eyes and pulled myself together enough to drive home before the milk got warm. On my way, my dad called. We talked about nothing important, and yet, he was the reminder I needed that grief will not always consume me like it does now, for he has lived this path. This loss will always be with me, but I will reach a point where I can talk about him and think about him and those conversations and memories will bring me joy. He would want that, I know. I’m just not there yet.