I’m no longer cradling my sorrow close to my body, tiptoeing across an icy parking lot, afraid of falling. It’s been days since I succumbed to breathless, snotty child sobs.

Grief is like aging. One day you have a pain in your back or your knee and you think hmph, this is new, maybe it will go away, but you kind of know it’s here to stay. Best to get on with it, however gimpy my heart.

My father never took a day off when his parents died. He got up and got on with it even after his beloved wife died a week after their 30th anniversary. So I get up with my new ache - what is that again, did I sprain something, oh right, my father died - and do my job and don’t cry much. This seems as rational a response to grief as any.

But I am just daring anyone to tell me to smile.