When I heard about mourning
When I heard about mourning, I wasn’t told that it wouldn’t be painful. I wasn’t told that it would make you feel peaceful and at ease with adrenaline rushing through your veins and pumping you to accomplish a million tasks at once. I wasn’t told that it would give you more energy to focus on work and increase your productivity levels.
I wasn’t told that it would numb you to the very core and make you ask yourself if you’re a sociopath for not feeling a single drip of depression as you watch that person be taken away from you and into the ground. I wasn’t told that it would give you the strength to let each day pass by and still allow you to emotionally grow and comfort others — even those who never gave you words (or actions) of condolences to acknowledge your grief.
I wasn’t told that it would make you hustle until you’re completely drained, burned out and helpless. I wasn’t told that it would hit you right inside the gut in the most unexpected moments, months later when you’re having the best time of your life. I wasn’t told that it would creep up upon your being at the end of a manageable day, right before falling asleep.
I wasn’t told that the mind would sometimes picture the memory of the coffin door closing upon the most special human of your life when you close your eyes to fall asleep. I wasn’t told that it would make you feel a sharp shiver down your spine as you try to think of something else to find another means of distraction. I wasn’t told that it could, and it would get much worse.
I wasn’t told that time wouldn’t heal, that it would just intensify the angst because it would eventually begin suppressing the soothing feeling of denial. I wasn’t told that it would be possible to miss a person so badly that you so desperately want to believe in an afterlife so you can still feed the hope that you will see that person again. I wasn’t told that you would fear to forget the vivid tone of that person’s voice, the soft surface of her skin, the tender eyes looking through you like you’re still that little girl she took to school in the back of her bicycle.
I wasn’t told that you would never come to terms with the fact that karma is just a fad and that people really do live meaningful lives only to die a terrible death of sudden suffocation. I wasn’t told that you would yearn for the feeling of having a family to care for and to comfort, so you don’t have to live through all the pain alone — although even if you do have those things, mourning will still be a very personal, individual thing. I wasn’t told that you would feel so guilty and angry at every waking moment that you remember her, for not taking enough time to love and cherish that person because it can really all be over in an instant.
I wasn’t told that you would despise looking at an elderly person and feeling hate within, wondering why that person has the chance to grow old and be present, and your favourite person didn’t. I wasn’t told that things like “it was meant to happen this way”, “she’s in a better place”, “may God give you strength”, “everyone goes through it eventually”, “she wouldn’t want to see you sad” would sound so fucking disgusting that you just want to take a punch at the little fuckers who tell you that.
I wasn’t told that you would rather people ask you about her and take a moment of their time to hear all the funny stories you both lived, instead of giving you that pity look that means absolutely nothing and only triggers more hatred inside your being.
We are frequently brought to believe that mourning is a temporary state of mind with transitory emotions that come and one day, just go. We’re taught that mourning is a strong pain at the beginning marked by a deep feeling of acceptance in the end, and then we can just go back to living our normal, mediocre lives without being forever changed by the facts. But that’s obviously not true.
Mourning is not temporary. Mourning is more like an avalanche of snow that hits the surface of your being at this sudden, slow pace and piles up its remains at the bottom of the mountain, altering its shape, and forever changing its structure. That’s what mourning is. It doesn’t end. There isn’t a feeling of relief or emotional release — because the emotional release is, on one hand, temporarily powerful and overtaking, and on another, completely everlasting.
Mourning is a knife that superficially touches your skin ever so lightly, gently taring and reshaping its smooth surface, only to, all of a sudden, press against your muscles and rip you to absolute shreds.
And that is what makes life precious it is what makes empathy so urgent in a world of endless possibilities prioritize the one that focuses on holding on to what we love and especially who we love through this journey until we meet again.
This piece was originally written on January 14th, 2020.
