on the efficiency of grief

The thing about grief is it doesn't wait for a convenient time. It comes at Rajiv Chowk at 8:45am when you see someone reading the same book your grandfather used to carry, or in the dairy section of the supermarket when you remember that she always bought a specific brand of butter that you still buy out of habit even though you don't have strong feelings about butter. I've gotten fairly efficient at processing it. On the metro I can be sad for about four minutes before the train arrives. Supermarkets get six. Longer, uninterrupted grief requires a full evening, which you have to plan for the way you plan for other things: close the laptop, tell the people who might call, be somewhere that can hold it. I don't know if this efficiency is health or adaptation or just getting older. Probably all three.