on grief

this is nonfiction.

–

My strongest memory of loss goes like this: I, a young boy, fresh-faced (having recently turned thirteen), am in the school dormitory, drinking a cup of black tea with bread at break time when one of my classmates comes running into the dorm, completely out of breath. After regaining his composure, while suspiciously eyeing my tea and bread, he boldly claimed that my father was at the office waiting for me.

This was odd (hence “claimed”): my father did not consider visiting me at school a priority; there were always more important things to do, money was scarce, time even more so, etc. Even odder, if my father were to visit me, the disciplinarian in him would never allow for random visits on non-official days. But, a message from the headmaster’s office is not one you casually brush off, and so putting my tea aside (and asking my friend to watch it) – believing it would be a short visit – I hurried over to the office.

It was not a short visit. As a matter of fact, we left the school entirely, my father and I – another oddity for both of us – and throughout the journey that felt like an eternity, we barely spoke, aside from the obligatory mutterings of questions and answers that passes for conversation in dysfunctional relationships.

It was not a short visit. And by the time I got back to school in the evening and processed what had happened – and in the process finally breaking down on my bed sobbing my heart out for a loss that still haunts me to this day – I knew my life would never be the same.

Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back. – Maximus Decimus Meridius, Gladiator.

…

I have a… complicated relationship with death: of course, like everyone else, loss hits me hard, painfully so, but I have made my peace with its inevitability. And that night, many, many years ago, my very young adulthood was violently ushered in, and that was perhaps the first time I started my journey of the acceptance of life’s transience. The second time was so incredibly painful and… raw that it warped the very core of my world… and my faith.

I shall not speak of that death. At the very least, not today.

Each subsequent loss reminds me of that acceptance and reinforces that peace. I have accepted that at some point, we’ll all die, and so I cherish today and now as much as I can (and as I grow older, I get more intentional about giving people “their flowers” while they are alive to receive them: compliments, appreciation, affection, tough love, affirmations, support, etc.).

In fact, I am reminded of something profound I read many years ago, a version of which goes thus:

One day some people came to the master and asked ‘How can you be happy in a world of such impermanence?’

The master held up a glass and said ’Someone gave me this glass, and I really like this glass. It holds my water admirably and it glistens in the sunlight. I touch it and it rings! One day the wind may blow it off the shelf, or my elbow may knock it from the table. And I say, ‘Of course.’

When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.

So what’s the point of all this, you ask? Well, death is one thing, it comes and it goes and before long, the death itself may be forgotten. We all know this. The ebb and flow of life. Kismet, chronos, asthéneia, all of it.

But grief. Hoooo boy.

Grief is… an insatiable rage that makes us question life itself. Grief will have us railing relentlessly against everything we believe in, grasping, and clawing for any semblance of reason. Begging for something to make sense. For anything to make sense.

Grief will have us doubting our reality and pleading with ourselves to wake up from this feverish nightmare. Please please please… PLEASE!

… please…

And once we’re exhausted and the anger and rage and despair and hope has given way to acceptance…

Grief… lingers.

Like an oily, clammy sweat that sticks to your skin no matter how desperately you try to rid yourself of it. It seeps into every single fiber of your being, working its way through your world, like a tiny, silent stream of drip drip drip that trickles deep into your clothes and just… won’t.. stop. Until you wake up one day and you’re completely drenched in unfathomable melancholy, overcome by an emptiness that you simply cannot explain – to anyone. Or yourself.

And so you sit. In the silence. In the darkness. And wait.

Grief stays with you.

A dark, ominous cloud lurking just above, slightly off center, enough to allow a little sunshine to pass through, but always following, waiting, looming. A foreboding reminder of a million possible tomorrows that could have been…

And then, before you know it, one day, you forget. Because on some days, the cloud seems to have gone away and your life is whole and joyful once more. And the days between the dark clouds get longer and longer, turning into weeks, months, and perhaps, years.

There is some solace and comfort in the knowledge that with time, your grief starts to heal around the scar left by death, and becomes an ache that’s not quite gone (because for that ache to be completely gone is a different kind of emptiness).

And then… you wake up and slowly realize that your grief has transformed from a deep, painful longing for one-more-day and it’s now a soft, wistful, whimsical memory that brings a smile of gratitude.

Gratitude for a life shared, for a world well-explored, and for a love known, however briefly.

“What is grief, if not love persevering?” – The Vision, Wanda Vision.