At some point in the past few weeks, it felt like I was in a season of grief. First, I lost two friends in the space of a week and in a funny twist of events buried them days apart. Then I lost someone who was almost like a baby brother to me that left us all shattered. It all felt like their lives had been cut short at their prime.
I started to ask myself how people cope with grief/loss? Has anyone figured it out yet? How does life make any sense after you lose a parent? A sibling? A loved one? They say after the burial you begin to heal. But do you really? When I went for the burial of the second friend who died, I stumbled upon the grave of a male friend who died earlier. He had had a ruptured aneurysm, much like I had last year. I didn’t sleep easy that night as I remembered his life and the pain was afresh like he had just died the day before and not four years ago. It felt unfair but I did not know that death still lurked around, waiting to strike again.
How do you know that it’s okay to laugh again? That it’s okay to be social with people? How do you know that you have mourned a person long enough to be able to carry on with life? And can you, mourn someone enough? Can you compress years of knowing and loving someone into a week, a month or period of mourning? Even if one was to cry the equivalent of an ocean’s tears, does it do justice to the vacuum they leave behind? When is it okay to go out and have fun again without feeling like you have betrayed the departed loved one?
I’ve come to accept that the loss of a loved one hangs around you like a shadow. On some days, it is glaringly in front of you and on other days, it falls to your side or behind you as a silent companion. Whichever one, it never leaves you. You just learn to live with its presence.
