Grief

Friend o' mine called up yesterday and asked me something about 'how you manage or deal with grief'. Yeah grief.

Well, it's one of those things you have to laugh about - and we did - in retrospect. I had an initial thought, but did not say much as he explained.

This is the funny part. When he first asked me - and I told him this later - my first thought was, "I just give um grief back!"

I gotta laugh at myself really. Well of course I also understood that he meant 'loss of a loved one'. But you know in life you don't actually tell people what crossed your mind - it could be embarrassing.

For those who don't know, 'grief' in England is used to convey things like stress, aggravation, hostility or bother - alongside its more usual meaning. I didn't know that when I first came to England.