I experienced the vulnerability of Robert Frost's poem Bereft during the weeks prior to Mother's Day. I was breaking the sabbath and shopping on a Sunday in Texas, when I became suddenly oppressed by a window display blandishing passersby to buy "the gift she'll never forget." I swallowed. I entrenched behind my sunglasses. I riled at American consumerism, looking for a way to condemn the advertisement. I knew the sign couldn't be blamed for its insensitivity toward my situation.
I recalled these lines:
Something sinister in the tone
Told me my secret must be known:
Word I was in the house alone
Somehow must have gotten abroad,
It is a kind of pain you relish--the exposed, but secretive feeling that a nerve which only you know about has been hit by some external force. I knew that no passerby could possibly intuit how the loss of my mother was causing me to feel compromised, even in the bright sunlight of the parking lot. Even so, as I walked down the row of stores, I found myself scanning with my peripherals, as if expecting some kind of ambush.
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