Wednesday, July 27, 2011

The grief that feels eternal....

The grief of losing a baby is crushing, breath stopping and confusing. I am also convinced that grief becomes more intense as the attachment grows. Sapling versus tree analogy. On days when I least expect sorrow slams down ruthlessly. So does guilt as to how can I even think of moving on.. smiling, even laughing, eating, cooking? I also now know extreme grief can manifest as physical symptoms, something so far I have never experienced. The chest closes up on you, at times it even pains and breathing gets shallow and till I don’t cry it out it feels like a hard piece of apple is stuck at my throat.

However, grief puts in perspective the importance of life. The pettiness of want. The superfluousness of declarations of love. The stupidity of feeling versus thinking. In coping with grief, talking it out is helping. I can’t kick away my loss as if it were an untouchable garbage can. I really can’t pretend it dint happen. Or that it was routine. I do not want to philosophise it or rationalise it. All I want is for it to be real. My loss and my coming to terms with it. Not doing so will be really trivialising the whole event of loss. What I lost is not a diamond brooch or a fast car. It was a life of a being much wanted and very loved. That was my son. Even if people around me tell me "there will be more" ..."you are so young", and I do know they tell me all this because they care, they do love me, but for me it is a loss with which I grapple with every day. Sorrow creeps up on me when I least expect. In solitude and in room full of people.

But life must go on. I have a spouse. Parents. Inlaws. Friends. Colleagues. Eternal mourning is unviable and impossible because we human beings have a rare gift. We forget. Slowly but steadily. It is the norm of nature. Weeds and grass grow over graves. Civilizations grow over civilizations. And so the cycle of life continues.

Never before have I been so acutely aware of life and its tribunals and triumphs. Do I still take it for granted? No. Am I too old? No. Is there a limit to what I can achieve, which so far I just thought of some kind of pipe dream? Yes there are always limits but then that is why I will try. I am not suddenly invincible, not miraculously infallible but I am definitely more trusting in my abilities, more in sync with my inner voice. I am still chicken shit of risks and the unknown but I do have a definitive comeback, something to the tune of "So what? What more or worse? ".

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can see your come back to the tune of 'So here I am' to the "Bright and beautiful future".

-Malathi

Anonymous said...

Having gone thru the loss of my very young spouse, I can really identify with each word u say and the feelings behind them. The pain never goes, it's just that the passing of time dulls it. God bless !