GRIEF AND HOW IT GROWS AROUND YOU
This might be the most vunerable post out of all the ones before, because I am not speaking in allegories or metaphors, but in a sense of direct storytelling. Iām not used to non-poetic writing either, so please bear with me! TW: heavy mentions of death, grief, alcohol as coping mechanism, living alone.
This sounds like a very pessimistic post, but trust me itās not. I just hope someone relates to it and it is supposed to make the people that are going through this feel seen.
I started writing a post on how grief hardens you into a shell and silly troubles like school exams simply donāt bother you anymore. But now I realise I just wanted to share my grief in order to help someone struggling with loss.
Grief is something that can happen to you in many ways than the one most used: Someone dying. People abandon their circle of loved ones in the form of unanswered calls and the tough shield of voicemail. However, today I will talk about the kind of grief which is more commonly used now, but less viewed as serious.
Death is surely the most complex mystery of our human civilisation, and each culture has a different way of interpreting it. For example, the Tibetan culture has the practice of sky burials, something people on the West can hardly imagine. And the circumstances of the death itself, our connection to the person which passed away and the way we react to grief based on early life experiences all undeinably decide how it will shape us into a future version of ourselves.
Mine happened to me when I was freshly eighteen, six months ago. It first started, the entire situation, when my fianceās grandfather died in November. I wonāt speak too much on it, because it is not my story to tell, but I will say that this was the first time I got truly scared of what is going to happen next. It is like someone spoke to me and I heard it, and knew that one day this will happen to me and I will lose the person I love the mostāmy grandmother.
However, when I thought of that, I couldnāt even imagine that for once it wasnāt anxiety or paranoia, but a nagging feeling of intuition. A month later, that same thought materalised into existence.
It was Thursday, and I was in school. I had a certain four hour long class where I couldnāt use my phone and I noticed my grandmotherās sister was calling me. Something told me, once again, to pick up but I didnāt. I thought āI will deal with this laterā.
My mother picked me up at 1:15 PM which is odd because my brother usually has speech therapy around that time. I called her to tell her I will not be let off early as I thought, but at the regular time intended. My P.E. teacher was oddly mean to me that day because I called my mom (and he found it disrespectful even though class was almost over, and we were just waiting for him to let us go). And I knew that this entire string of occurrences throughout the day was major. I felt it, and let it go once again.
It was only when I walked up to my motherās car, and she walked out to greet me when I knew something was wrong. Her shoulders suddenly slumped as she faced me, her lip trembled and she was fidgeting with her fingers. She addressed the news, voice breaking slightly, that my grandmother has passed away.
I always had two grandmothers. One was seventy three, healthier than all my family combined. The younger one let herself go a long time ago and neglected the needs of her body. Despite that logical assessment, I knew which one passed away. It angered me that I guessed right, and we didnāt have to confirm between each otherāone moment of eyecontact was enough.
My first instinct was to flee. I took all the strength to walk away from the car until my mother grabbed my wrist and embraced me tightly. I was still in the car ten minutes after we arrived home, rolled the windows up just so I can scream for a while. Until my throat was dry and my smoking habits tugged at me.
The first thing I said is that her dog is not going anywhere. She has a dog that was intended for me when I was five as a birthday gift, but my grandmother hadnāt spoke to my mother about it beforehand, so she became the owner herself. And now we are getting to the full circle moment.
I took it upon myself, without anyone expecting or asking of me to, to move into her apartment and be the owner of her dog. I lived with my mom for my entire life, and my younger brother as the newest edition for the last (almost) eight years. I havenāt known anything beyond the small and cramped house we lived in and couldnāt imagine not living with my mom before this.
But this is who I am and my strength is always greater than the pain in front of me. My fatherās job was to finance this, because I was a highschool Senior and I couldnāt afford to drop out of school and work (it was obviously out of question).
The funeral wasā¦unexplainable. Iāve chosen flower arrangements and songs to be played in the background, we all agreed on the casket and I wrote a speech. But when I saw that wooden box, my knees simply gave away. I sunk to the ground because I realised that the tight space my grandma was put in will never match the greatness of who she was. And she was, and always will be, the greatest loss of my life. She was an equal stolen from me.
I just settled down in life. I got proposed to and truly started grasping academic responsibilities to a menacing point. I went to London for the second time and found a group of friends to do stupid teenage shit with. I finally learned how to live. And then the concept of living gets distorted with only a mere moment of your life. Joy is so easy to crumble.
Living alone was the worst experience of my life. It changed me in a way which nothing else did. The death itself wasnāt hard, but what came after it. I slept on the couch for the first two months because I couldnāt lay on her bedāit felt like death itself. When I would open the door of the bathroom I would instinctively look down just incase I see her legs peeking through the doorāthis is where she died. I stopped eating altogether and school was somewhere buried in the back of my head along with her.
No one prepares you for the moment you lose all your friends. And even the rest of your family, because they all have their own concerns and so do you. At one point, I broke up with my fiance because I couldnāt do anything anymore. And that finally made me be truly alone. Without even my mom to talk to, because we got into a fight as well. It is such an indescribable feeling that I wish I could use my arms and legs to gesticulate it. If you know, you know.
The only creature I was around and saw (because I stopped going to school as well) was my dog. And I hated her at times because we both endured many sleepless nights. She would cry and whine and wait around the door for my grandmother to show up. She wouldnāt eat or drink water, only whine. All. The. Damn. Time. I screamed at her once that grandma is not coming back. I felt so bad I started profusely apologising until I couldnāt hold it in anymore and I just broke down crying. That damn dog walked over to me, put a paw to my shoulder and cried with me. Then we coped together, which meant that at least one aspect of this never-ending cycle was figured out.
Alcohol was a coping mechanism. I never blacked out but I would go out, get drunk and cry on the streets as I walked home. From Friday to Saturday to Sunday. Endure five days of school (or not). Repeat.
I relived her death each time I came back home or woke up on that couch or mustered up the courage to cook a meal. When I smelled her perfume and her, with it. two months after her death, I couldnāt go to school the next day.
Believe me, not even therapy would be able to fix this. I was raging, irresponsible and in shambles. This is the worst version of me that ever was, and I battled depression before. This was beyond depression, I think I mightāve died with my grandmother. A part of me did anyways, or I have altogether.
I donāt think of people the same anymore. I donāt look at the world and think āwhat new is there to discoverā but rather live in the fear of whoās dying next. Each time someone calls me now I have a semi-stroke and canāt function for the next hour. It will get better and it did, but it wonāt disappear completely.
To anyone who feels this way, my deep condolences to you. Not only for your loved one but for you as well. Those that remain die a little as well and it is so overlooked. All those challenges you overcame with your peers weigh differently when it comes to people who grieve. An A and a B are not valued in the usual order when youāve seen death and what it does to those around you. The B will forever be more valuable. I had to learn that myself because no one told me it happens in school.
You lose the last part of the child in you, and I canāt guarantee you will be able to find it again. At least I didnāt, but I truly hope others do or did.
And whatever happens to you after this, doesnāt feel worse than that day when you let loose and stood unprepared towards what will strike you next. Now there is at least some armour, and perhaps an arrow to shield yourself with. But the first time it happens to you, that is what changes you forever. The loss of it all is so great, the loved one, who you were, what once was, the reminder of what will never beā¦It so unbelievably painful.
People say itās necessary because we would never grow. Partially, I agree. I did learn. Everything I am now is because of it. But I disagree that it was necessary to lose someone (in a true and literal sense) in order to reach higher awareness. I would rather be unaware and happy in my idiotic little brain and get to hug my grandmother for one last time, hear her voice and see her smile at me than to know anything beyond that simple life.
But, there is a good point to it. No matter how much time we have, it is never enough with the ones we love the most. Oh it is so hurtful but so true. Cherish that. To love someone so much it physically hurts you to not see them is love. And to keep living despite their absence and keep loving is love in purest form. Persist the battle, engage with the grief and perhaps something comes out of it. For me itās my art. I will forever live through it, no matter in which form. And so will my grandmother.
Which takes us to the focal point of my username. There is always something that we desire, deeply. For me it is in this post, with the loss of my best friend. The loss of me and the brightness that still sometimes glimpses through who I am now, but less frequently. If I stood in front of that mirror myself, I know that this is what I would see. And what you think you would see in that mirror is the motive worth fighting for until it changes into something else. That is what drives us through life and helps our souls persist against all the bad in the world. Even if you had it for only a glimpse.
Keep loving and caring, because it is worth it for those who are still here physicallyāespecially you. I hope that if someone saw themselves in this (which would pain me) felt at least a teeny tiny bit of relief. Take care ā”
