The automated voice over the intercom announced that the 5:15 PM express to Chicago was departing in two minutes.
Elena stood in the center of the station concourse. Around her, the world was a blur of motion. Commuters in grey coats rushed past like a river, checking watches, dragging suitcases, shouting into phones. It was a symphony of progress, of people moving forward.
But Elena felt like she was encased in glass.
It had been exactly two years today. Two years since the phone call. Two years since the “before” ended and the “after” began.
She looked up at the giant analog clock on the wall. The second hand swept around the face with relentless precision. Tick. Tick. Tick.
She thought about the text she had read earlier: Grief is so weird.. It wasn’t a linear journey like the books said. It was a chaotic distortion of reality.
Some days, it’s like time stands still.. but the world keeps moving while i am stuck here missing you..
Standing there, Elena felt exactly that. She felt anchored to that Tuesday two years ago. She could still smell the rain on the pavement from that day. She could still feel the cold plastic of the phone against her ear. In her heart, zero time had passed. The wound was as fresh and red as if it had happened this morning.
A woman bumped into her shoulder, jarring her. “Watch it!” the woman snapped, not breaking stride.
Elena blinked. The spell broke slightly. She looked at her own reflection in the station window. Her hair was longer. She had a few grey strands that weren’t there before. She had changed jobs, moved apartments, filed taxes.
Other days.. it rushes by so fast and i find myself wondering how i have made it this far without you..
It was terrifying how the calendar pages had turned without her permission. Two years? It felt impossible. How had she breathed approximately ten million times without him breathing next to her? The days just blur together, but the sadness stays the same..
She walked over to a bench and sat down, letting the rush hour crowd flow around her. She felt a profound sense of vertigo. Grief makes everything feel off balance..
It wasn’t just sadness; it was a fundamental split in her identity. It’s like you are living two lives.. the one before they passed and the new normal you’re in..
There was the Elena who existed in the “before”—the one who was a wife, who made plans for retirement, who laughed without a shadow behind her eyes. And then there was this new Elena—the widow, the survivor, the woman who knew how to navigate funeral homes and lonely Sundays.
How can both exist at the same time?.
She felt caught in between, trying to move forward but always carrying the weight of what’s gone..
The train whistle blew. Her train was leaving.
Elena stood up. She picked up her bag. She had to get on the train. She had to go to work tomorrow. She had to keep moving because physics demanded it.
She stepped onto the platform, merging into the stream of people. She was moving fast, keeping pace with the commuters. But inside, she was still standing perfectly still under the clock, holding onto the hand of a man who wasn’t there.
Grief is strange like that.. how it makes everything feel so fast and so slow all at the same time..
