The past year has been beyond life changing for me. For someone who has dealt with trauma and grief unknowingly in their childhood, and has grown up to understand what goes behind trying to resolve a lot of trauma that we carry, most of which may not even be ours… This past year has just blown things out of proportion for me. With the loss of Akshay, which most didn’t understand, most still don’t, I found myself lost, faithless, belief-less, heartless, soulless, brainless… the list could go one. Many moons later, when there was a semblance of a breath… and a sneak peek from behind that heavy curtain of shock, you see what lies ahead… Grief… in a whole new form from how I had experienced it before, and nothing like what you could have possibly thought you knew cause you had heard of it.
The life I had planned, everything that made me feel like myself and the other person who helped me feel whole, gone, just like that. In a blink of an eye. Now what? What about the patient waiting for life to begin? What about the time gone? What about the memories that were to be made? What about, what about, what about…
But then, time moves on, everyone else keeps going, the sun and moon rise and it is what it is. We are still here. For whatever reason it is. So you try to do, bit by bit, what you can do best. Teach yourself to be present in the moment and start to befriend your grief. The more you do that, the more friendly you become, the more you realize that it gives you the time, space and strength to find yourself and your ‘wholeness’ again. Within you. Grief is what is going on, on the inside, while mourning is what we do on the outside. We may stop mourning on the outside, but Grief has its own way and process for your insides. Imagine having a cracked rib. Everything looks perfectly fine on the outside, but there is extreme pain on the inside. Well, THAT is grief.
It is up to us to take from it what we want and need. Grief is a process, a journey, with no explainable dimensions and no expiry date.
I read somewhere, the Grief is love with no where to go… So I took from it to be loving and kind to myself first. Put myself first (something he first taught me and showed me) to do whatever it was I needed to do to survive. Most people around me just didn’t understand, still don’t. It is not easy to allow yourself to Grief when you let your head take over. It’s harder to grieve around people who don’t like how grief looks on you. But shattered hearts left behind still beat… so through the grief I was dealing with I still tried to do my level best to keep others happy and accommodate for all the regular shit that one does in life… and I realize that shit just doesn’t work. I did what I had to do, including stopping giving a shit about anyone other than myself and my mental and emotional health. Cause you know what, no one else will give a shit.
But for the handful of people that showed up in my life at that time, I am so grateful for you. For them and the people’s love and wishes is what kept me afloat. I know it.
Only I know the magnitude of my loss, and the ones I share this experience with. So I will honor that and them and myself above all. Grief IS a reflection of love, and I am grateful to be on this journey, cause I know what this is matters. The reality is that you will grieve forever. You don’t ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one. You have to learn to live with it. You have to heal and rebuild yourself ‘around’ the loss suffered. I know I will be whole again someday, but I will never be the same. Nor should I be, nor do I want to be.
People who might think that one can grieve for ‘too long’ or grieve ‘too much’, well everyone is different. Do we want to judge that? So then do we judge people who grieve ‘too little’? Some people want to process and some people want to pretend and keep moving. Both are trying, just different ways that worked for them. One person’s food is another person’s poison.
Most people don’t even think twice about this, but just because someone carries loss and grief well, doesn’t make it any lighter to carry. I grieve openly and I’m very protective of my process and the process of my loved ones, cause grieving openly might actually save someone else from dying quietly on the inside.
Love doesn’t dies when the person we love dies, it doesn’t disappear, it remains.
Here is the truth of it. Grief grabs the heart and doesn’t seem to let go.
Life gives us pain and our job is to experience it when it comes our way. Avoidance of it has a cost, I have seen this first hand. Having pain seen and seeing the pain in others is needed for the body and soul. There is no forgetting grief.
Meet people grieving where they are, don’t try to cheer up people grieving/depressed. That will just make them feel guilty. Please be conscious of what the other person is going through. Just be there, even silently, keep their feelings company and don’t ask ‘how are you?’ and ‘why don’t you..?’ Every life is unique, no one can take anyone’s place. We’re all one of a kind. So allow the pain to be felt and released and refrain from telling them what to do.
I/we will probably grieve forever. I/we will not ‘get over’ the loss of our loved one. I/we will have to learn to live with it and we will heal and rebuild ourselves around the loss we have suffered. Because what else is there? So please get on board, or get out of the way.
Thanks.
