Sample Excerpt My Dead True Love:  Ann’s first moments of grief

“How can you be here one minute and not the next?” I cried out silently.

 It happens. Just happens.

Only nights before, we’d slept together in this bed, entwined like grapevines. Skin to moist skin after making love. With my hand resting on his chest, I’d felt his heart beating. Oh sweet, excruciating memory. My mind flashed on the movie where a grieving Superman rolls back time by flying around the earth so fast he reverses events and Lois Lane comes back to life. I wanted that. Wanted to do that. Desperately. I understood Superman’s anguish.

To never see Gregory alive again. Never touch him or be touched by him. Never engage in our repartee. Share our private jokes and knowing glances. Never see him burst through the door. Never smell grill smoke in his hair. Never get called away from tossing a salad to come quick and see a sunset. Never feel our nakedness beneath the covers. “Never” is the mantra of grief: Never. Never. Never. Never. Never.