Living With Grief-Lessons and Truths I’ve Learned in the Past Two Years After My Big Loss (Part 7)

By Roopa Swaminathan

Published in Kitaab

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.

As December 2022 came and went I took stock of my life over the past two years since the big tragedy that befell me in December 2020. And the following is what I have learned over these two years.

1. Life goes on.

As much as you think, pray, hope, yearn, rage, fear, and agonize over the world coming to a halt because of what happened to you – the bitterest of truths is that life goes on. Let me say that again. Life. Goes. On. The trees bloom. The dogs bark. The sucky family continues to suck. The best friends continue to pick up when you call them on Zoom at 2 am to walk you through the pain. Bollywood’s worst films release with clockwork precision. Really. Nothing changes. No one stops. So, while your life has stopped and then restarted and continues to chug along like a steam engine train that no longer exists – the rest of the world moves at warp speed. They don’t know. They don’t care. And that’s the hardest of pills to swallow.

2. Life goes on.

And thank God for that. Because the banality and mundaneness of your daily life are what finally keep you going. The milkman drops off your three packets of Amul milk in the tiny tote outside your home. Him complaining for three years that ‘Didi! Kaunsa dus saal purana kisika shaadi wala bag abhi tak use kar rahe hain aap? Bas ho gaya. Isko badlo na aap?” (Sister! Why are still using a tote bag from someone’s wedding some ten years back? Enough already. Change the bag!”) And you nod your head and promise you will change it tomorrow. And that tomorrow never comes. The washing machine will choose to go on the fritz the one day you decide to wash all the curtains. The domestic aide continues to complain about her ‘bevda aadmi’ (drunk husband) but will shake her head when you ask her to leave him and that you will support him. “Nahi didi. Aisa thodi hota hai. Yeh sab chaklta rahta hai. Zindagi ki gaadi chalti rehti hai.” (No sister! It doesn’t happen like that. These things keep happening. Life goes on!”

Exactly. Life really goes on whether you like it or not. And that forces you to get past your grief and at least pretend to start living. Because…there is no other way out.

3. Nothing shocks you anymore.

When someone passes on in your life…you are at your bottomless pits. And at a time when those who should be there for you aren’t – you develop a Teflon-coating outside of your heart. Nothing, no one can hurt you going forward. And no news will ever shock you again because you have been through the worst already.

4. You become strong.

When the worst in your life – the loss of a closed one happens – and you find yourself coming out of it, not unscathed, but with the tools to navigate life – that gives you strength unlike any other. Really. Losing your closest is the worst tragedy of it all. And when, like me, you go through that twice, in a period of 6 days, and you have literally scraped the bottom of the earth – the only way to go is up. And when humanity lets you down in every possible way – and you – two years later are able to sit down and write an article for Kitaab, you know you have made it out of the hump. No. You’ll never be fully happy again. But you will survive. Because you have just shown you can survive through the worst two years of your life. And that gives you strength unlike no other. You are now in a place where you call out bullshit when you see it, and will not put up with behavior that is heinous because what’s the worst that can happen? The other person will leave? But then – you’ve lost the two most important people in your life already. What else can happen now that you cannot handle? Oh, the strength in that feeling!

5. You live between a curious sense of peace and guilt.

When something good happens – there is a quick sense of happiness and you want to share it with those you’ve lost. But then you realize they’re no longer around. And that drops you into a cauldron of misery and guilt.

You go from How can I even dare to feel happy when they’re no longer there? TO I’m so glad I can still find small moments of happiness despite them being no longer there.

For the most part – especially during my second year of grief – I’ve lived between these two extremes.

I live between feeling grateful that I’m able to find reasons to smile. And then I curl up in misery that I had the audacity to smile. How could I?

6. Memory fades.

Because memory is such a bitch. Every single day I go to bed and wake up with thoughts of the ones I’ve lost. But every single day I lose tangible memories of my life with them. The grimace, the snarky comment, the hand gestures, the tying of the saree knot, the complaining about my tea-drinking, their voice, their laughter, their smiles…every single I day I remember them but I don’t remember them. This is the worst.

Not gonna lie. I love to sleep. I always have. But now I look forward to getting a good night’s sleep because sometimes, not always, but sometimes, they come in my dreams. Uff. If I remember the dream the next day…I walk around feeling such a rush and am on a high because, for a few moments, it felt like they were still there. The only real happiness I feel these days is when I see them in my dreams. It doesn’t happen often. But when it does…it makes me want to go to bed and never wake up again.