Grief-findor

How do people grieve? When my dad died I know I cried buckets—from the ICU where I first saw him unconscious until his burial and some other instances after it as well. I remember trying to comfort myself by believing that if I think that it’s just like he’s out of the country for work (like he used to be) it wouldn’t hurt as much. It worked for a couple of years but later on I came to realize that I can never really escape the searing pain of loss.

For almost 5 years I almost thought that I’d already passed this phase, but I’m dead wrong. The feeling of hurt and guilt every time I think about him is still there and is still the same. I still find myself breaking down when pain strikes me in a jiffy most especially when my emotions are unguarded. Just like the other day when I was on my way to work, I saw this cute little girl being walked to the prep school in our village by his father. Then I remember that my dad used to do that when I was a kid, every time he gets the chance he was ecstatic to do it, he used to wait by the tree house near my school until we finish. Then that’s it, right then and there it hit me.

“one can resist tears and 'behave' very well
in the hardest hours of grief.
But when someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window,
or one notices that a flower in bud only yesterday
had suddenly blossomed,
or a letter slips from a drawer
... everything collapses.”
~Colette

He was never one of those cool dads but I know in some way he wished he was one. This may be too late but you know what? He is indeed cool in more ways than one.

I’ve read somewhere that resolving grief is a long process. Some took 10, 20 years to resolve it. They say that you’ll know that you’ve already resolved your grief when you go through life without intense pain and longing. It means that you can think of the years you had with that someone and smile. It means that you can think of him without hurting. I don’t know when I’ll be able to experience those for myself, but I’m certain that I’m no longer taking the shortcut anymore no matter how painful it can be.

I realized that maybe I can never move on, I may at least learn to live with it but I can never ever move on. You see, once you’ve lost someone special in your life permanently you’ll never run out of what if’s and what might have been’s—I never did. And I can never stop myself from wishing things that concerns being with him. Upon his then sudden departure, he took with him a part of me that no one can ever replace and that space where that part was taken will forever be empty.

My heart will never ever fail to remember.