The thing about grief: Sequel to "I love you too"

The thing about grief: Sequel to “I love you too”

“Perhaps the worst thing about grief is that the world, life in general just... goes on as though nothing ever happened, as though nothing ever changed. The sun still rises and sets upon command of its Creator. The birds still sing melodies only they can understand. The flowers still blossom and paint the world their different hues. People go about their lives the same way they did before. My responsibilities, the things expected of me have not changed. Everything is the same all around me. And even though my own little world is not as it used to be, I am expected to be the same too, to get on with it. It’s as though one of a million stars went off, and so the sky is just as bright without it. But it was my star, the one that lit up my world, and now it’s just... dark. At several points in the last couple of months, I’ve wished for the earth to stop spinning; I’ve willed it to pause for a minute, to at least acknowledge that it isn’t the same, that something about it has changed, to give me time to find my bearings again. I’ve wanted the world at large to be different too, to not function the same way it used to. But it doesn’t work that way. And so even though grief turned my world on its head, I am having to find a way to move on with the rest of the world as though everything were the same just so I don’t get left behind.”

“They will tell you how grief will break your heart. But grief did not break my heart. See, when a heart breaks, all the pieces are still there, in place. And were that the case, I probably would have been able to roughly tape it back together. Grief instead drilled a hole through my heart; grief made away with a piece of it so that it would always be missing, so that there will always be an empty space. Grief keeps prying the wound open every time I stitch it up. Grief will not let me heal. I know I will not “heal” from grief. I cannot heal from it. I will instead find a way to live, to get used to living with that empty space because nothing else can ever fill it.”

“Grief demands to be felt. You know, I have always been good at ignoring how I feel, ignoring my emotions by piling “more urgent” things on top of them. But grief always finds a way to push through the pile, to litter my days with subtle reminders of loss, to wrap itself round what I thought were mundane things. Mornings are heavier, sunsets not as beguiling. My eyes well up from time to time because the air randomly starts to smell like her. My heart throbs every time I hold the cooking stick a certain way because she taught me that. My favorite restaurant is now a hollow space crawling with melancholy, mired in memories that chip away at my heart. My favorite meal now tastes like wet soil, bland and clammy. My heart bleeds through my ears whenever my favorite song plays because it wasn’t just my favorite song; these weren’t my things, they were ours. It’s as though every now and then, grief pokes at that hole just so I do not forget its existence. Every now and then, grief waves that piece in my face just so I know that it is missing. It’s as though I am constantly losing her all over again. The pain does not subside, nor does the anger lessen. I am still seething. I am still hurting. You do not move on “from” grief. You move on with it. You become okay with it. You become accustomed to it.”

“Grief demands to be remembered. Sometimes I don’t think I am hurting; I just remember the pain vividly. I recall the twinge in my heart when grief first pierced through. I distinctly remember helplessness, hopelessness’ face. I can still trace the edges of that sinking feeling. Every day she is not here, I remember what losing her is like. Every day without her feels like a first. Every trace of her is like a mnemonic, like set sequences that remind me what privation of her tastes like. When my brain forgets, my heart remembers. And when it forgets too, this house… the air… these trees… the streets… they all remember. And they push the twinge through my heart all over again.”

“But you know what, maybe grief is a celebration of love. Maybe I am in pain because I was lucky enough to have loved and to have been loved; lucky enough to have experienced what so many do not. Maybe grief is the price we pay for love. Perhaps I can only lose something I had, something that was, in some sense, mine, thus, grief is a celebration of having had. Maybe to leave behind grief is a medal for a life well lived, a life lived so fully that it drills an it-sized pit through the hearts of those who witnessed it. Perhaps it is a celebration of that too. Maybe grief is a reminder that we are wrong for thinking that we have so much time, for thinking that people could forever belong to us, for thinking that love could save. Then again maybe grief is just… agony and anger and regret. Maybe grief is just grief.”