Grief Chronicles (1)

It is nearly a month since we laid my father to rest – confirming the scripture that “dust we are, and to dust, we shall return”. In the past few weeks, I had the grace of God to watch my brother marry. I had the benefit of 2 weeks after the funeral to run errands with my mother to make sure the wedding went well. The wedding was a good distraction. None of us really had a moment to pause and ponder that my father was gone forever, at least not until the wedding day when the waterworks came but even then, I cannot say we had a moment to grieve. We had a moment to notice my father missing in all the pictures but not enough to grieve. And so, after a week of being back in my apartment in the US with no one to chat with late at night because once again I am battling time difference, I am finally experiencing loss.

You see, loss for me hasn’t just been my father dying, it has been all the things I have lost and am losing along with it. I keep imagining that all my life, I have been within this protective shield. A shield in which nothing could really go wrong but the moment my father died, it felt like someone broke into the shield, pulled him out of the little pod, and in so doing, exposed my little world to every possible darkness in this jungle called life. The moment my father died, everyone else became capable of dying. I have understood the finality of death but it never occurred to me that it could be a thing that would happen to me (not in this manner) and the fact that it has, makes me worry that it is lurking and it isn’t gone. Along with my father, I have lost my indestructibility, my peace, my ability to engage – I still leave messages unread for days and I have even lost the strength to believe (and this is the worst). I approach Yahweh’s throne now as if expecting a ‘no’ because I remember asking Yahweh the day my father passed to spare him. I wake up terrified to get to work because I am struggling to believe that I can do this work and do it well. I am struggling to believe I am emotionally ready to go back to work (maybe I am not) but I don’t think remaining in one place is how I will move from this point.

I have never been to a waterfall but I imagine there is a lot of water crashing on rocks. I imagine if you are at peace, it is one of the most beautiful things to see and if you are not at peace, it is the best metaphor for your insides. I think I am a waterfall inside right now, all my emotions are fighting to be let out. Some days it’s just the waterfall, I can see clearly where the water comes from and where it runs if it is joy, peace, grief, pain, or sadness. Then, somedays, there is a thunderstorm at the waterfall because I cannot for the life of me, point to where it starts and where it is going. The thunderstorm is any external trigger and I am fragile so drops of water, whatever they might be, someone’s unkind words to me, or someone else’s problem that I can’t fix, all of it have the capability to turn my world upside down.

I do not write for your pity, your sympathy, or your care, I write for it is all I can do before I find a counselor.