An Original Fable

Once upon a time, there was a wife whose husband passed away unexpectedly. Soon after his death, she began attending bereavement sessions to help overcome her grief. As time went on, she felt as if she would never get over her husband's death. He had not been perfect, but he was an awesome lover and she missed the way he could make her feel when they were intimate. She had been attending these bereavement sessions for over ten years and nothing was helping her overcome her grief. One afternoon, a couple of hours before a scheduled session, she said to herself, "I am gaining no benefit from going to these sessions. I go week after week and I sit and wish I were somewhere else. I will go to this session tonight but it will be my last one. Because I don't feel a benefit from going, I will stop wasting my time and stop wishing for my beloved husband to come back from heaven. I will be glad when this night is over." Later, at the session, the wife spoke up to the other attendees and stated that after over ten years of grieving for her beloved husband, she was no longer going to attend the sessions. She stated that she realized she would never stop grieving for her late husband and it had taken her over ten years to realize that. The other attendees murmured softly as she said her farewell to the group. At the end of the meeting, after everyone had appeared to leave, the wife locked up the room and turned around. Sitting outside was a woman, sobbing. This woman had sporadically attended the bereavement sessions over the last ten years. While she was not as much of a regular attendee as the wife had been, this woman had never said a word during the sessions. She would sit in the back of the room and listen. Even after a session, this woman had never spoken directly to the wife. The wife knew that this woman had lost her husband around the same time that she had lost hers and had began to attend the bereavement sessions around the same time. Now, this woman approached the wife. "I heard what you said. Did you learn nothing? You still think these sessions are for you?" And with that, the woman walked away from the wife.

The End