In the weeks that followed my mother’s death, the busyness that occurs immediately afterwards slowed down and a sinking quiet rolled in like a fog over the harbor. That initial busyness is essential to surviving the first shock of death. The brain needs tasks, a to-do list, to keep its attention turned safely away from the fact that life is currently in a free-fall, permanently changed and changing.

In the weeks that followed my mother’s death, the busyness that occurs immediately afterwards slowed down and a sinking quiet rolled in like a fog over the harbor. That initial busyness is essential to surviving the first shock of death. The brain needs tasks, a to-do list, to keep its attention turned safely away from the fact that life is currently in a free-fall, permanently changed and changing.