I was not new to death. Death had walked among us in the fields, taking hands and leading us away. I had felt the bones of his hand and I had slipped from his grasp. I knew what it meant to watch the life leave a person's body. I was a doctor. I had handed people in pain to Death. I had closed eyelids of all colours and sizes.
The surprise, then, came not from seeing a body shattered on the pavement. Nor from the crimson stain on a pale blank face. The shock overcame me, I babbled, I fell to my knees, but the surprise came later.
I had never once realised what it meant to yearn for someone's company and have nowhere to find it. I had lost friends in the war; that was true. But I had been able to leave their bodies behind in the earth, with short November visits.
I knew my own strength, my determination even. If there were any thing asked of me, any thing that I wanted to do…I would rise up and do it. But there were no painful journeys ahead. I found no enemy to battle against. Here, was only an aching void where I could not find the one I longed for.
Where creation is being, seeing, living, I now saw death as the great void that fills all things. In every moment I observed absence and saw that I was alone. They tell me that it is grief but I have known grief. I have conquered grief. This loss is greater than mere grief.
I say, come back to me when you see the face that isn't there, and then we can talk of grief.