Living With Grief – When They Die Again. And Again. (Part 2)
By Roopa Swaminathan
Author’s Note
Living with Grief is a series of articles on my journey into loss and grief. Life as I knew it upended when I lost two people closest to me in a span of one week in December 2020. As much as those around me – friends and family, art, films, music, and literature – tried to explain the process of grieving, the reality is that the heartbreak I felt was at a level that was/is unimaginable to me.
It was also a time when I had to face some stark realities of life. Time did not lessen my pain. There was/is no end game here – even though many around me want me to ‘suck it up’ and ‘get over it’ and ‘move on’ because my constant grieving affects ‘their mental well-being’. Some 18 months later – I still wake up and go to bed with the same intensity of grief I felt back in December 2020. What has changed, however, is that I’ve learned to live with my loss. I’ve learned to navigate my way through life with grief as a constant.
I wrote this series as a way to handle the many truths that I faced in these past 18 months. I wrote it as a way to heal. But honestly, every single day is still a struggle. But writing has helped. I hope these stark ruminations during the worst week of my life and its aftermath can help you in some small measure.
God Speed.
Loss and the feeling of loss are not a ‘one-time and done’ feeling. I don’t think even the most callous, the most indifferent, or the most detached of people (and I’ve experienced all three of them during my own experience with loss) think that.
But just in case anyone thinks that there is a time frame for loss…well, let’s just say that it’s a LOT easier to continue the process of living after your loved ones are gone to know IF there is a timeframe to how much suffering is waiting for you around the corner.
You will feel intense pain for three months and then things will get better.
You are extremely sensitive. So, you will probably feel pain for six months.
You have your family – a husband/wife, children. Taking care of them will make you get over your loss faster since you are responsible for those who are still living.
You’re young. You have your entire life ahead of you. You’ll bounce back soon.
You’re middle-aged. You’ve seen so much life already. Of course, you mourn them now but, trust me, you’ll get over it in a week or two.
True?
FALSE.
We’d LIKE to hear these statements – and trust me – there are many inconsiderate enough to say all of the above to those who are mourning but the fact is that none of it is true. Neither is there any time frame to getting over loss. One of the things that I experienced myself (and then realized I wasn’t special and that everyone who has been through loss suffers from it) is how you can go for hours or days feeling just fine. And then something as silly as watching a TV show where you see a man ruffle his daughter’s hair and… you fall to pieces.
Ann Hood says that grief is not linear. A truer sentence has not yet been spoken. Those suffering from loss will understand this. While the initial few days/weeks/months ravage you with sorrow – there comes a time when each of us finds the inner strength to take that next step that resembles something close to our routine before the tragedy happened. That day will come to everyone. The time frame may be different for each person but it will come.
For me, personally – my parents died in December 2020. I do NOT remember the months between January 2021 – June 2021. Clearly, I’m here and I’m writing this…so I made it through those months. I also worked full-time during those months AND cleaned out my parents’ home during that time as well.
But when I try to think back to those five months – I have NO memory of anything solid or tangible. I simply do NOT remember anything. I started to ‘feel’ something by the beginning of June 2021. I started to remember things as they happened in the middle of June. And by the end of June 2021 – I found myself smiling, once in a while.
Don’t get me wrong.
I still feel my parents and their loss every second of every minute of every single day. I don’t foresee a time in the near future (or ever) when that will change. But…the difference is that I’m starting to feel other things too. For the past few weeks, I’ve started to order lunch from a Tamil caterer who makes amazing South Indian food and delivers them. Three days back she made avial and paruppu usili – and I ordered two extra helpings. That’s because my caterer makes them exactly how my amma made them and when I consume them, I remember my amma. So, yes…I still cry – a LOT – but I also have a smile on my face sometimes.
And that smile, that warm and gooey feeling I have lulls me into thinking that things are getting better. And just when I think I’m doing OK…I will remember a moment or see a gesture or hear a song or a laugh and I will fall apart. Thing is, it doesn’t have to be anything even remotely connected to a memory of my parents (like the above avial scenario). Most times I bawl like a child over something that had nothing to do with my parents.
That’s grief.
And it happens at least once a day to me. Yesterday I watched a snippet of comedian Vadivelu on YouTube. He was my appa’s favorite comedian from Tamil cinema. And my amma hated him. Every single time a movie or a scene of his came on TV my dad would laugh like a little child while my mom would mutter under her breath about how stupid and silly both Vadivelu and my father were.
Oh, boy, did I bawl afterward!
Today – I was standing on my terrace (balcony) and watched a little girl, about 5 years old, playing with her grandma. The grandma called her granddaughter ‘bitiya‘ – a term of endearment in Hindi. And that was it. I must’ve cried for at least a half-hour remembering my appa who always called me ‘kanna‘ – a term of endearment in Tamil.
Yes. Grief is so not linear. And I realized that first hand.
Do you know what else I realized? That death of a beloved doesn’t happen just that once. Yes. Our near and dear ones leave us forever and we cremate or bury them. But that’s not the only time they die. This is not something I knew or prepared myself for.
I have been working with my sibling to get all of my parents’ estate planning together. The first time it happened was when one of my parents’ banks finished the entire ‘closing of the accounts’ process. When the paperwork was all done, they handed over the proceeds of the account to us per our parents’ wills.
It didn’t hit me then.
I followed the instructions of that particular transaction, came home, and went about the rest of my day. About an hour later my phone pinged from the sound of an incoming message. It was from my parents’ bank. It said that my parents’ joint account had been closed forever.
It’s such a simple thing, no? The closure of a bank account. I mean – in the larger scheme of things how bad can it be? I buried my parents. This was just a bank account being closed.
But the intensity with which it hit me – oh, man! I so wasn’t prepared for that.
Because when I got that message from his bank – it felt to me like my parents and their memory were slowly being erased. The proof of a person’s existence – apart from them being present – are things we take for granted. Bank accounts in their names, the property they own, phone numbers associated with them for 20/30 years, and more.
Over the past month – this is happening repeatedly. Just when I think I’ve made peace with their loss comes yet another closure/erasure of something that they were connected with – change in the property name, closure of other bank accounts and bank lockers, wearing amma’s jewelry, giving away appa’s Titan watches, donating amma’s sarees and appa’s shoes and sandals and track pants and more – every single time…it feels like they died all over again.
As things are being closed or shut off one by one – as it’s the most natural thing for us to do – it feels like my amma and appa’s existence is being wiped out.
And it feels like they died – again. And again.
And I mourn them – again and again.
