YesCrack it sits with you as if someone is acutely aware of your weakest self and asks you to examine it more deeply. As long as there’s no pain. It asks you to pull the scab of the wound fast and painful. For a photo or when smiling with loved ones, if you laugh and engage, grief will remind you, it exists, that you need to do it. That you are not allowed to be too happy or hopeful. Something terrible and heartbreaking has just happened to you.
Ever since I lost my father to a cardiac arrest in November last year, I have been grieving for the past few months. He would have turned 73 on April 9 this year. I was very close to him and I feel his absence deeply every day. I think the finality of death is the hardest to calculate. The idea that all your memories with that person are now in the past. That you have to draw from this finite set and think of a million different ways how you could have done something differently, or imagine a different outcome of a memory and how it could have happened. You’ll sometimes discover something about that person that you didn’t know while you were alive. You have many questions. You are probably puzzled about this new information and want to ask the person about it – what does it mean, how did they feel. His right to print his story on that memory and to color his own understanding in his own unique way.
I am also amazed at how grief affects you in completely unforeseen circumstances. For me, when I’m stretching during the cool down phase of a 40-minute exercise routine, I find myself choked with tears. out of the blue. right on time. I find myself tired in the gym. The place where I would usually be at my happiest, strongest. For some reason, I miss losing my father at the end of my exercise routine.
The first few days at work were the hardest. There were many occasions when I cried silently and the people around me did not know. My therapist taught me a quick way to deal with this pain. To look at the ceiling and count to 10. This kind of vision takes you out of a situation. But the day I stopped trying to cry, I started crying less. It all got easier. Why are we so afraid to express something so real? No one will think less of you for tearing up.
Many were not feeling normal for a very long time. Buying clothes, watching movies, meeting people, talking crazy, gossiping. Feeling ambitious and competitive about the job. Many of these things were the core of my personality. But that core had changed radically. Someone hit the reset button. Grief doesn’t just affect you, it changes the person you are. It changes your sense of self and balances what you hold to be true and what it means to you.
I am who they usually describe as “a very Type A person.” But during this time, I found myself feeling purposeless and sometimes wanting to completely switch off and do nothing. And one act of kindness that I did was to allow myself to do so. For no-agenda days. I wouldn’t mind if I didn’t complete a single task on my list. To tell myself that getting through that day was the number one thing on my to-do list. Giving myself that grace helped me deal with it and maybe even cope with what I was feeling.
Absence registers more deeply than presence. I am convinced of this now. And there are no formulaic ways or healing or wellness actions or steps to process grief. Even the seven stages of suffering did not apply to me. I’ve probably felt more grief in 101 steps, not counting.
For too long, my father’s death collapsed into everything that was going wrong in life. If something bad happens in one day, the all-encompassing grief surrounding his death is compounded by that small bad thing and culminates in a greater sense of despair and profound sadness.
Everything in life, big and small, reminds me of that. His shaving cream and toothbrush on the bathroom shelf that I have never dared to throw. Every few days, the pictures Google Photos keeps throwing at me on my phone are an unwanted but tangible reminder of this body weakness, life itself. I look at pictures from different times in his life and think to myself, he looked much weaker than he was a few years ago, when he died. But of course he couldn’t have been better given the fullness of death, I argue with myself. I thank the past for preserving my body for all these years. For allowing him to see life until 72 and for me to be a part of almost half of that life. I look at myself in the mirror and find marks on his face. Through me and with that eyebrow or smile or jaw or hair, I want him to live on forever. Or at least to be with me until I do.
I have often (sometimes unintentionally) referred to the death of my father as the cause of my absence or slowness or general inability to do something. Sometimes I wonder if I use his name too often and in vain. That I should not speak so personal for myself. Something that probably no other person will ever share as intensely. But then there is no other reason. If I’ve been slower or less involved or less productive, it’s because the constant presence in my life has become a memory. And somewhere along the way, I let myself know this truth to the world. By doing this I did not lose his memory. I honestly told only what I was going through. If I had to be true to my work, my output, my appearance, I would have to accept that something had changed in my source of power. It was important for the other person to know this information.
During the nearly five months since his death, I have found myself hesitant at the thought of posting a pleasant picture of myself. Or vacation or pet photos. What if people thought I had spent a period of courtesy mourning and then forgot all about it. It took a lot of self-talk to convince myself, that I needed to give other people (and myself) more credit than this. The sorrow of his death and the happiness of my life are not doubled. Heart’s life is never lived through binaries. Even on the beach of Goa with the sun on my face and the sea all around me, I was enveloped by the feeling of their absence. what he would have said or done. What would he have eaten? And I would find myself choking for no apparent reason. And yet, there is a smiling picture of me on Instagram. And in that moment, I am all that stuff. I am happy and I am sad and I am looking at the future that does not lead to him and I am looking at the past which taught me to imagine what his reaction would be to this future. It was all what I was feeling. And all those feelings are valid.
Life draws a timeline in your mind, always so neatly. before his death and after his death. It takes on a new meaning. Was it out of date, unchanged me? Unaware of what was to come? Or was it me who was living (and even thriving) in spite of everything?
Lots of new memories popped up. What would Baba have done if he was here? I felt the need to incorporate them into all the new memories I was creating – and find ways for those old ones to actually happen. Until I was absolutely sure, what happened and what was imagined. Somehow, by the time his attendance was recorded, he was being honored in some way or the other.
Many people will (in a good sense) tell you what to do to cope with the pain. Many of those things can help. But you may still not feel like you have fully recovered. And why do you have to seek treatment? This loss may become permanently established in your mind. And that’s fine too. The world has got used to providing quick solutions to everything. There is no solution to dealing with grief. And I’m glad that doesn’t happen. Because one needs to sit through it. Feel it and immerse yourself in it. I also understand that telling yourself (or others) that you don’t want to cry is useless. You will cry, maybe you will cry. And it’s okay if you do.
The sadness I felt in that moment opened myself up to compassion and empathy for others. I realized that the more deeply he felt, the more I cared about his problems. It was as if someone had put a bold and underlined on the word “feel” in my emotional map. This time I also realized the wonderful people who surrounded me. Who arrived with their words and deeds and hugs and food. I will be forever grateful to him.
There came a time when I felt so paralyzed that I felt myself and life as I knew it was over. That feeling had overtaken me so much that I couldn’t do anything else. That nothing else really mattered now that he wasn’t alive. That there was so much futility in my existence. And you know what the feelings I had about me at the time were really true. I was just a body for many days. One who did not perform his primary function in the society.
There were many moments in this journey when I felt weak and helpless. Where I felt unable to lift myself from the abyss of misery, let alone my other loved ones. But in that I found the strength (perhaps after a good night’s sleep or maybe after a few hours alone) to move on and hold my mother and sister’s hand. And I learned through it that there is a perennial source of energy and faith and strength that will take you forward. You don’t have to be strong in death. You may be weak and feel that you are powerless and yet, keep going. That, in itself, will be your strength.
Grief is a process. A journey that has no real end. But it teaches you a lot about yourself along the way. And it’s about how you build relationships with the people you care about. And how do you carry them? in the palm of your hand. whether real or imaginary. They’re still there a lot. With you.
shalaka.patil@gmail.com