"For better or for worse, till {cough} do us part."
Pardon me? I missed the word after "till". You know that dreary, 'one-that-should-not-be-talked-about' D-word or [Insert Favourite Euphemism]. The part about [clears throat] death. You'd say that's a pretty morbid note to begin my blog with, since I'm meeting you after a long hiatus and considering this is technically, my first post in 2016. But something happened in the near family recently that drew me to this seemingly impassable, by-invite-only, eerie-looking door and my dread of mortality.
I first encountered Death as a soft-cushioned blow when I was nine years old. My grandma passed away, a woman who seems very shadowy now, but whose regal air and booming voice I can vaguely recollect, like a fading apparition. I really can't tell you how I dealt with her not being there on her armchair everyday. I am sure I must've got ghosted by her once in a blue moon. I don't recall if I hung on to any of her relics as a way of keeping her home. Her sudden disappearance into the shadows — it must've been quizzical but unfortunately, I don't remember anything about it.
But death went about its business and four years later, when we were sleeping, it came back for my mother. I remember being woken up to the sound of my loud breathing above my dad's anxious voice, as if somehow I had already felt its presence. I remember a ringing sound in my ears, like when an air plane dips in altitude all of a sudden. And I remember incomprehension. The haze of incomprehension lasted for months. We'd go out to play with our friends and come back and realize that someone irreplaceable is missing. We'd eat food without really tasting it — sometimes we'd complain out of habit but it didn't really matter. We were always huddled up in a group of friends and family who threatened to give us warm hugs and kisses for every little incident that reminded us of our mum. And yet there was a thick blackness within - through which the soothing, consoling words failed to seep through, one that made us feel lonely like never before.
I have felt the pervasive, all-consuming experience of bereavement more times in my close family than I thought I could take and every time, it took a piece of me to an alien land. To the stars, to another dimension, to another life form, to dreams - anything that promises a connection between the living and the dead. I lost my brother at a young age to malaria. We, as his family, and his close friends fell in a crumble of despair and agony at the invincible shock of it. I saw us rise from the ashes only to become a little distant, each one of us lost in his/her own unrequited longing for closure, for the finality of knowing that he's not here with us any more, of knowing that just like that, one day, against all odds, he's fallen out of life.
Every time I look at someone who's experienced loss recently, I know that they're wearing a façade, one that makes you think, "Oh, he'she's coping with it so well." "Oh, he/she's a fighter" or "How very brave of him/her." But the hard truth is there's no putting away grief. Unfortunately, grief strikes you in places that you thought were numb before and it takes its own sweet time to heal. Peels of the depths of love and loss buried deep underneath a hard layer of shock come to surface gradually until you hurt no more, until you stop looking for signs that they'll come back, until you can finally say goodbye, until you can tell their stories, of your deep connection with them to the world with a brave smile or calm tears.
I've thought about Death every time I encountered it in the vicinity and over time, I've found some solace in mellowing the face of it. When I first chanced upon it in my family, it was a dark-faced stranger, inconsequential to my scheme of things at large. Its face grew more menacing as it paid us more unwelcome visits and I started dreading about whom it would claim next in its creeps. I still shake involuntarily when I hear of somebody else drowning in the unknown, leaving the other dots in their life circle to deal with the complications of life, that will only move on in uncaring gusts and torrents. I've thought about Death a great deal and learned (the hard way) that perhaps, it'd make it easier if we could give Death a more solemn, and I dare say, a less spine-chilling appeal. I sometimes look at Death not as an impenetrable black shadow but as a gentle, Gandalf-like, white wizard dressed in opulent veils coming down on his white-horsed chariot to take you on another road, parallel to life, equally intoxicating and riveting, anything but ordinary. Maybe it's just more exciting to visualize your loved ones in an alternate world than to think they've turned into unchangeable stars. Maybe it's just comforting to think that death is merely a change of location that cannot be geo-tagged, isn't it?
Today, when I talk about my mum and brother, I notice I don't break into inconsolable tears but reminisce them fondly; probably that is the blinding effect of time over grief. I realize that without knowing, I've moved on. However, their worth in my life remains unfazed. I wear my mum's gold bangles and I carry one of my brother's last gifts to me, a pearl choker, in my purse. I finally know that I've reached a place where I can look at their memories as worth celebrating and smiling about, as was their life. As is LIFE. I may still look for traces of them in everyone I get attached to. I may look at old albums and wonder about how much I really knew them and grieve over pieces of them that I've lost forever. Some of their memories are still strong, clung to an old habit or mannerism, a brand of soap or the smell of food. It's strangely true then that while I have come to terms with my sense of loss, their worth in my life is immortal.
To all those who are experiencing the grief of loss in some form or the other, there's a passage that I came across that seems so true:
“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn't seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”
- Anne Lamott
Here's hoping we learn to dance with the limp.
XOXO
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| Image Reference: The Book Thief (www.filmequals.com) |
I first encountered Death as a soft-cushioned blow when I was nine years old. My grandma passed away, a woman who seems very shadowy now, but whose regal air and booming voice I can vaguely recollect, like a fading apparition. I really can't tell you how I dealt with her not being there on her armchair everyday. I am sure I must've got ghosted by her once in a blue moon. I don't recall if I hung on to any of her relics as a way of keeping her home. Her sudden disappearance into the shadows — it must've been quizzical but unfortunately, I don't remember anything about it.
But death went about its business and four years later, when we were sleeping, it came back for my mother. I remember being woken up to the sound of my loud breathing above my dad's anxious voice, as if somehow I had already felt its presence. I remember a ringing sound in my ears, like when an air plane dips in altitude all of a sudden. And I remember incomprehension. The haze of incomprehension lasted for months. We'd go out to play with our friends and come back and realize that someone irreplaceable is missing. We'd eat food without really tasting it — sometimes we'd complain out of habit but it didn't really matter. We were always huddled up in a group of friends and family who threatened to give us warm hugs and kisses for every little incident that reminded us of our mum. And yet there was a thick blackness within - through which the soothing, consoling words failed to seep through, one that made us feel lonely like never before.
I have felt the pervasive, all-consuming experience of bereavement more times in my close family than I thought I could take and every time, it took a piece of me to an alien land. To the stars, to another dimension, to another life form, to dreams - anything that promises a connection between the living and the dead. I lost my brother at a young age to malaria. We, as his family, and his close friends fell in a crumble of despair and agony at the invincible shock of it. I saw us rise from the ashes only to become a little distant, each one of us lost in his/her own unrequited longing for closure, for the finality of knowing that he's not here with us any more, of knowing that just like that, one day, against all odds, he's fallen out of life.
Every time I look at someone who's experienced loss recently, I know that they're wearing a façade, one that makes you think, "Oh, he'she's coping with it so well." "Oh, he/she's a fighter" or "How very brave of him/her." But the hard truth is there's no putting away grief. Unfortunately, grief strikes you in places that you thought were numb before and it takes its own sweet time to heal. Peels of the depths of love and loss buried deep underneath a hard layer of shock come to surface gradually until you hurt no more, until you stop looking for signs that they'll come back, until you can finally say goodbye, until you can tell their stories, of your deep connection with them to the world with a brave smile or calm tears.
I've thought about Death every time I encountered it in the vicinity and over time, I've found some solace in mellowing the face of it. When I first chanced upon it in my family, it was a dark-faced stranger, inconsequential to my scheme of things at large. Its face grew more menacing as it paid us more unwelcome visits and I started dreading about whom it would claim next in its creeps. I still shake involuntarily when I hear of somebody else drowning in the unknown, leaving the other dots in their life circle to deal with the complications of life, that will only move on in uncaring gusts and torrents. I've thought about Death a great deal and learned (the hard way) that perhaps, it'd make it easier if we could give Death a more solemn, and I dare say, a less spine-chilling appeal. I sometimes look at Death not as an impenetrable black shadow but as a gentle, Gandalf-like, white wizard dressed in opulent veils coming down on his white-horsed chariot to take you on another road, parallel to life, equally intoxicating and riveting, anything but ordinary. Maybe it's just more exciting to visualize your loved ones in an alternate world than to think they've turned into unchangeable stars. Maybe it's just comforting to think that death is merely a change of location that cannot be geo-tagged, isn't it?
Today, when I talk about my mum and brother, I notice I don't break into inconsolable tears but reminisce them fondly; probably that is the blinding effect of time over grief. I realize that without knowing, I've moved on. However, their worth in my life remains unfazed. I wear my mum's gold bangles and I carry one of my brother's last gifts to me, a pearl choker, in my purse. I finally know that I've reached a place where I can look at their memories as worth celebrating and smiling about, as was their life. As is LIFE. I may still look for traces of them in everyone I get attached to. I may look at old albums and wonder about how much I really knew them and grieve over pieces of them that I've lost forever. Some of their memories are still strong, clung to an old habit or mannerism, a brand of soap or the smell of food. It's strangely true then that while I have come to terms with my sense of loss, their worth in my life is immortal.
To all those who are experiencing the grief of loss in some form or the other, there's a passage that I came across that seems so true:
“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn't seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”
- Anne Lamott
Here's hoping we learn to dance with the limp.
XOXO
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