Day 2: Here’s how I think you should react to Grief and her younger sibling, Loss.
Tags: Death, Grief Support, Daily Thoughts, Mental Health, Grief And Loss

Day 2: Here’s how I think you should react to Grief and her younger sibling, Loss. Chika Sep 18, 2019·4 min read

There’s no pleasant way to have this grief themed conversation. It is the elephant in the room, the awkward subject that makes people twitch on their seats.

I’d gloss over a couple of issues I had with friends, when I lost a loved one, and that has also ended my relationships with them. I was aware that a good number of my friends haven’t lost any close relations yet, so the news of my loss would unsettle them. I understood that. If I could put that much effort into considering their stance in a situation as this, it’d be fair that they do the same. Or so I thought. Lots of things were said, unsolicited advice, comments, prayers given but one comment that really got to me, stayed with me for a while.

Someone referred to my loss as a downer.

Listen, when a friend informs you of their loss, or you stumble on such news, be conscious of the things you say.

Grief isn’t something one gets over or gets cured of. It isn’t the flu. It’s not a bad mood. You can’t shove it down with ‘It is well’. You can’t fast or pray it away. You carry it for the rest of your life. You’re conscious of triggers. You never know where the waterworks will embarrass you; at the marketplace, in the middle of a chuckle or conversation, then you have to watch this other clueless person you’re having a good laugh or conversation with, apologize when they didn’t do anything wrong or check to know if you are reacting to something in the environment.

It messes with your essence, your whole being. You question your search for purpose and quest to live, to achieve something, anything. Is it all worth it?

All you want to be is LEFT ALONE!

When you can condone having humans around you, that burden, your loss, becomes your purpose, maybe you’ll make that lost loved one proud. They’ll probably look down and smile at me. What if they’re tied up in the ground with your worries and your anger at the world and the order of life, wishing you’d stop wasting your time on this fruitless venture called worry and live a little louder. When you decide to live, suppressing whatever it is that has held you back, you wonder if you have mourned them enough and hope you’re not moving on so quickly. If you are, you pray they forgive you.

How do you measure mourning?

The shaving of the hair? how much body fat you’ve lost? How isolated you’ve become? How disoriented you look? Your visible angst at the world?

You put all of this behind you barely grappling at whatever reason there is to live. When it looks like you’ve finally gotten a hang of this grief thing, you badge into someone that looks like that lost loved one, or they come up in a discussion and you have to remember that the person has passed, you swallow the lump of saliva that’s beginning to form at the back of your tongue. A few sighs, head movements, the awkward moment passes and you try to jolt the conversation back to life with whatever prompt that comes to your mind. In that moment, you acknowledge them, even after the rain has washed off their obituary posters, they stay with you. You carry them in your mannerisms, in your speech, your gait, they are not just a mere memory. They are with you, not physically but in pieces of themselves they shared with you. You remember the great times you had and lived, and a tear comes running. This time not in regret but in gratitude for the life they led.

I’ve learnt to acknowledge whatever emotion I feel whenever the thought or memory comes up, to bask in that moment and not be in a haste to get over my grief. The truth is, we actually don’t stop grieving or hurting, we just learn to live better with the knowledge of the loss. So when you see or hear that your friend lost someone, that’s not the time to brandish your knowledge of the scriptures or the dictionary, or compare pain. No. Just be quiet. At least, that’s what I’d want.

Because your friend, at a time like that, is brittle and vulnerable and needs a shoulder.