I wondered if it meant I didn’t love him, or never had.

I understand it better now.

It was not that I felt nothing.

It was that I had, without deciding to, moved into the same steady, task-focused place I go when a job site is in crisis — the place where feeling waits its turn and the work gets done.

My grief was real; it was just standing in line behind the things that had to happen first.

That is a survivable way to move through a catastrophe, and I have since recommended it to more than one friend: when the ground gives way, find the next right task, and do it, and let the falling apart come later, in a safe place, on your own schedule.