In the fulness of one's grief

It's a mistake to talk about being full of grief, as if grief were a tumour, or a full stomach, or something oedematous. Grief is an absence. It doesn't push, it sucks. To make a metaphorical cut or slice in the sealed membrane of the grieving self is not to permit matter to gush out; on the contrary, it is to permit the unbearable world to come surging in.