The Inconvenience of Grief

Dear stranger who mourns the past,

Memory is at once both beautiful and terrible. Sometimes, it is terrible because it is beautiful. Even the happiest one reminds you of losing something, and the saddest one makes you relive the despair it preserves. It’s no wonder then that memory and melancholy are so close in the dictionary.

There are many carefully preserved memories in you, stranger. Some more potent than others. And they all make up the wonderful, if complicated, collage of experiences that is your life (so far). If you do choose to grieve a memory, that is your choice and your choice alone. Never let anyone tell you what shape your grief must take. Never let anyone tell you how you must mourn a loss, no matter how old or because “it happened for your own good.” And, if ever, you must choose between an old wound and a new one, know that you shouldn’t have to make such a choice. Those who love you know that your grief is an indispensable part of your being. It is what makes you the beautiful mishmash of emotions you are—that they claim to love.

Know that empathy is not selective. It does not elect whose shoes you occupy at what time. Sometimes, it will be the homeless boy with broken chappals and scavenged food; sometimes, it will be the old lady next door with no kids to dote on; sometimes, it will be children blown up in war zones and dismissed as collateral damage; and sometimes, in the weakest of moments, you will find yourself in your own shoes—the old, worn-out ones you left behind on abandoned doorsteps years ago. And you will look at your life then, faced with the enormous sense of loss you once scraped through, all over again. Not because you choose to relive the trauma, but because it chooses to possess you.

Grief has the shape of water, stranger, slipping into the tiniest recesses of a fragile, broken mind. And years later, when you’re tidying up, looking for lost change or precious gems tucked away safely, you inadvertently scratch the scab of an old wound—presumed healed. And it is grief that oozes out, unannounced and uninvited, as painful as the first time it made home in you.

This grief, ironically, can feel good. For it takes you back to a simpler time, a simpler you: younger, vulnerable, optimistic, full of life and light. It is not the memory of loss or a person or a thing, that you enjoy so much as it is the memory of you. The saddest part is: the only people who know this version of you have long left your shores. And there is no one left to share the confusing delirium of this memory. It is okay to linger here, stranger, to soak in the sorrow (or joy) of reacquainting with yourself of yesteryear. But I do not recommend that you keep scratching. For grief never runs out, stranger. And people do not return. Not as the same people, anyway.

When a wound festers, it begins to reek. And nobody likes the foul smell of sickness. Know this, stranger, that most will scamper away from this stink. But to place this inconvenience of others above your own healing is a grave injustice you must not inflict upon yourself. Allow yourself the strength of solitude (or the aid of true friendship or brave love) to wade through this storm. Grieve, until there is no more sorrow oozing out. Until all the scabs have dropped off your skin and there is but a scar where once thrived a painful lesson in falling.

Never let anyone tell you how long it must take to get there.

With love from,
No stranger to grief