Card Shops are Not Safe Places

I bought a book in the cathedral bookstore last Sunday. It was about the  "A, B, C's of Grieving " I haven't read it yet but when I happened to open it up, the page revealed headlined finding a safe place to grieve. Oh gosh I am doing it all wrong - I grieve everywhere, even when I don't want to and even when it isn't safe. The one concession is to try to hide it so as not to embarrass myself and others. Grief is my companion whispering in my ear as we go about, presenting me with new realities, offering memories unbidden.Sometimes grief yells into my ear calling my attention to sorrows I might have missed on my own "How dare you laugh, you're alone now FOREVER. Nothing is funny!!!" So I am rethinking this book and will read from it later. Maybe I need an etiquette book on grief/grieving but not yet, please.
One of the least safe places has been my local Hallmark card shop.  I have known this since my brothers died in 2000 and 2002. One has to be careful not to wander into sections of the birthday card aisle that refer to brothers, likewise for Christmas, Father's Day. Even Thanksgiving cards are printed for "my brother and his family". . . . Necessarily I had to risk the card shop earlier in May in order to buy a birthday card, anniversary cards for my daughters, and an assortment of Mother's Day cards. I steeled  myself and determinedly headed in the door to get all cards at one time on one trip. Tunnel vision is a necessity. When one glimpses a "wrong" or dangerous caption - STOP LOOKING . Consequently a tracing of my route through the store is erratic, at best. Abrupt stops and turns marked the progress down the aisles  Don't look right there are "from the dog" cards there and in our dotage our dogs gave each of us cards for every occassion. Some of my best cards were from the dogs. To my wife - won't ever get any more of them., Quick! look away there is a "to the love of my life", and  "to my wife" - won't get one of those again. And then I decided to wander a bit through the various departments of the store, something I used to like to do. OOPS, I ran into a 50th anniversary bauble, something I will now never need or get. I wanted that anniversary. It nearly was mine - just a little less than a year to go  and now it is out of reach. Tears well up. I get my purchases and return to the safety of my car to weep yet again. It gets better (Not!). June has Father's Day and that is followed by July 2, Robert's birthday and July 3, Ben's.
Maybe I won't be a diamond level card buyer this year.