Life Update

Hi, I am alive! Sorry about the sparse posting, life has been a lot as of late. A lot of laughing until my face hurt, and a lot of balling my eyes out.

Sad news first:

Earlier this morning, Grandpa made his way to heaven.

Before I could finish grieving the loss of my Grandma in June, I am faced with the loss of Grandpa. Just like Grandma, Grandpa, too, was thousands of kilometers away; this meant I didn’t get to say goodbye in person. Is this a common destiny for immigrant families? Every night over FaceTime I watched him slip away, evaporating into a fraction of the person he once was. Next to him lied my mother, drenched in tears, also visibly withering away. How I wished I could put my arms around him, around her.

Nora McInerny, author and podcast host of The Hot Young Widows Club, wrote and spoke about the notion of “moving forward” from one’s grief, versus “moving on”. She elaborated on how the love we have for the people who lost, stays with us.

She said:
When you fall in love—finally, really, fall in love—with someone who gets you, someone who sees you. So much so that you finally see it, too. That, love is not a reality show. Love is actually so quiet. It is the invisible thread of calm that connects the two of you even when everything else is in chaos and falling apart. That bond stays with you, even when the person is gone; it is weaved into the fibre of who we are.

So instead of moving on, I am learning to move forward. Neurologically rewiring my brain to adapt to my new reality. One without two people I love.

Now, Good News:

I am surrounded by people who generously love me, love on me. On days that were absolutely tear-filled, there were people who took me out on walks, bore witness to my pain, and held space for my grief.

As life slowly inches forward, I am trying to focus on the beauty life has been. Over the summer, I had the opportunity to learn how to wakeboard; I saw dinoflagellates (bioluminescent algae) for the very first time, and camped in the woods. I also spent an luxurious amount of time with two little ones that filled my heart with joy and wonder.

So, soon, I’ll be posting more again. Thank you for staying with me through it all💙

But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.

Martin Luther King Jr.

5 Stages of Grief

Sometimes I forget, for whom I am writing. I catch myself thinking about what people would like to read, about the voice that reads familiar in other blogs, then remember that the purpose of this blog, is to find my voice. I am not writing to please, not writing to be mainstream. I am just writing. Writing for the sake of writing. So here I am.

Tuesday, June

Sitting on my bed alone, I turned my phone on Do Not Disturb, so as to be alone with my thoughts. Silence befell the world. If only I could quiet my mind, too.

I am anxious and have been anxious for over a week now. I know why. It’s circumstantial. This is how my brain processes and reconciles with the imminent passing of my grandma. Except I have ugly old habits associated with anxiety: When anxiety comes flooding, raging, and all-consuming, all I want to do is run. Escape. As far away as possible. Every fibre of my being aches for a new reality, a new beginning. Too bad that’s not how life works. Too bad that’s not how we get over our anxiety, either.

So instead, I sit.
In abject misery, I sit.
Staring into the abyss, I sit.
Amid palpitating heart beat, I sit.
Enveloped in fear and angst, I sit.
I sit. I sit. I sit.
And wait.
Trusting that eventually I will move onto the next stage of Grief, finally arriving at Acceptance.

But until then I can only sit. Sit and wait. Sometimes with eyes wide open, mouth agape. Sometimes overtaken by tears, heart wrenched in a fist.

No body ever said grieving was pretty.

Time moves in one direction, memory in another.

William Gibson

No place to hide