To
Everyone who experienced loss
To the parents who lost their child, the child who lost their parents or grandparents. To all the lost friends and lovers and mentors and acquaintances, today I grieve with you. I hear your anguish and feel your pain. I am right where you are, unmoored in this bleak and gloomy hell that we call our home. Regardless of the lifespan of the deceased or the quality of life they lived; nothing will ever minimise the hole their loss leaves in your heart.
Don’t let others convince you otherwise. Some of us have fond memories to look back on, maybe some only have pain and struggle, but the value of a life lived and lost remains the same. And grief doesn’t discriminate. It may don different forms— rueful remembrance, overwhelming sorrow, gut-wrenching pain, bouts of uncontrolled rage— in all its form it’s broken and just like anything else, it will take its sweet time to heal, to repair. And there may always remain scars, cracks that remain detectable beneath all the deceptions of moving on. But it’s okay.
It’s all going to be okay. Perhaps not today, not tomorrow, but someday in the future, the world won’t seem so bleak anymore. There’s no hurry. Take a deep breath. Or maybe not. Maybe drown yourself in work. Maybe crying all day in bed would help you. Just take your time to process. I am here. I am listening. And I understand.
I understand your inability to understand this absolute failure of humanity. I am right there with you, unable to properly comprehend how to adjust to this massive shift that shook the very ground we stood on. Unable to understand how we went from laughing with them one day to waiting for hospital rooms or oxygen cylinders the other. Unable to accept the reality of having meals on the dining room table the other day and forcing our goodbyes in communal graves and pyres on another. I am right there with you, seeking answers on how to rationalise the loss and the inevitability of death in the face of almost criminal negligence by a government that swore a holy oath to protect us. I am there with you seeking answers in the face of denial, justifications in the place of excuses. We demand justice, NO, we DESERVE retribution for all of our suffering. But perhaps right now, we’ll settle for some reconciliation. If only someone could teach us how.
But maybe, just maybe, dear reader, there is no one way to do it. Maybe what works for you will shatter me and maybe what keeps me sane will drive you to the edge of lunacy. Maybe grief is a piece of baggage too heavy for some to unpack alone but maybe unpacking it together is not a luxury all of us can afford. Maybe you don’t have a shoulder to lean on. Or maybe you too, like me, shoved away the one that was offered. But still, I want you to know, you aren’t alone. And while this doesn’t make it any easier, maybe you find some satisfaction in knowing you aren’t alone in your suffering, that the world shifted on its very axis for a million others too and you weren’t the sole victim that was wronged. That I am with you in holding a massive grudge against the world.
So do whatever gets you through it. Whatever makes it easier for you to draw in your next breath, to digest the unjustness of it. Turn to religion to get you through these trials or cease to believe in the entity that failed you altogether. Maybe you never believed in the divine in the first place and you feel deceived by this failure of science. Let it take whatever form – anger at the world, anger at yourself, regret for the lost moments, strength to carry on their wishes, an escape found in the recesses of your tear wet pillow or deep in the pages of a book. Whatever it takes to survive. Fret not. I don’t judge you for how you cope. I understand. I understand. And I grieve alongside you.
From
Someone who has been touched by loss too
