Colors of Grief
“You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.”
Every time I would call Dad on Father’s Day, he would jokingly say, “What’s this fad? You should celebrate me every time I am around and not just once a year”. I’d roll my eyes and digress to other topics for the day. 😊
For me, my father was joy. Not my duty, responsibility and all things solemn, only joy. Joy of the kind that one can only experience through a human who is all your own and can do anything for you and you can do anything for them, but also of the kind where gossip and laughter galore surrounds you in their fun, kind, loving presence. After I turned twenty, there wasn’t an iota of discussion as far as I remember on serious subjects like why should you do this and not that but only on subjects like where and what shall we eat today, or which movie shall we watch, and what time shall we nap in the afternoon because nap we must! 😊 Oh, and long discussions on philosophy, we both fancied ourselves philosophers even without the degree. Joy of joys, bliss of bliss. Philosopher, friend and guide. And of course, a father.
A little more than a month ago, I was ruptured by his sudden passing from COVID. Seven sleepless days and night where he was in hospital and we were there with him, heart and soul though not physically. And then he breathed his last and we don’t even have the satisfaction of knowing when that last minute came.
As this day drew near, I had a voice in my head that first whispered but later screamed, “Write, write. It will calm you. Write.” The voice kept coming to me in those long hours of sleeplessness, in moments of despair, in periods of guilt and unhappiness.
It isn’t that I hadn’t experienced grief. I suffered the loss of extremely loved grandparents and my dear uncle. In fact, in retrospect, a few of the last several years seem to have been designed in a way to slowly and steadily prepare me for this. Anxiety, depression, loss of other people I loved, each a fresh and new blow. But every time I somehow managed to pick and enable myself and moved forward with courage.
This, however, is unlike anything else I have ever experienced before. It is new terrain. I know most people have to walk this path eventually, but it is the suddenness and the untimeliness that gnaws at me the most. The prospect of losing your parent teaches you humility like nothing else can. It brings you to your knees as you beg, plead and bargain with God for their life. “Please let him stay, this one time. I am ready to do anything, lose anything else. 10 years, 5 years, 1 year… at least a month. At least let me say goodbye” … And as it all goes unheard and they leave right in front of you, leave you to face this huge void for the rest of your life all by yourself, you run out of words to express that pain. However, words have always been my one strength and they found me in these dark hours.
I have decided not to write this post only as a lament on what I have lost but also on the lessons it has taught me.
Life goes on-
Since the moment of my father’s death, not a day has gone by which didn’t feel like my last. The initial few days, I experienced terrible ache in my chest, stomach and head almost every minute. It felt like some unexplainable disease which was draining my energy and body. The feeling that I wouldn’t survive this pain only grew stronger each day. It would be a lie to say that the thought that I could follow him didn’t comfort me, it felt hugely liberating. But as morning after morning I got up and somehow made it through the day, I realized we cannot stop living simply by wishing to cease. As Robert Frost wisely summarized, “Life goes on”.
Letting go-
Papa’s death was like a jolt, a reminder that anyone could leave anytime. All my life, I have planned events. I have prided myself on my ability to be structured and organized. But his unexpected departure without any goodbye and farewell has shown me that anyone can leave anytime without ANY notice or at best, a short notice. Having plans don’t really mean they will be executed… I suddenly experience an urgency to spend time with my dear ones- to hold them close, to guard them. At the same time strangely, I have stopped wanting to control outcomes. I sometimes smile thinking of how in planning the little details of my life, I never paused to think of how the larger picture is completely not in our hands. Also, bizarre as it sounds, I stopped fearing for my own life. There is an intense comfort, a warm ache in knowing that I have my Dad on the other side now. It has made me extremely comfortable with my own mortality in a manner that I can’t really put to words. Maybe it will change down the line, but that’s how I feel for now.
Calmness-
A huge lesson that I learnt during this one month was how calmness could make all the difference in the world. If we had stayed calm when my Dad tested positive for Covid and not taken those hasty decisions, he might have lived. If he had stayed calm (I don’t know how he could, with o2 levels dropping by the minute), but if he had somehow stayed calm, he might have lived. If I had stayed calm during those last video calls from the hospital, I might have seen his face properly, one last time. All those opportunities are now gone. But what remains is the realization that if we stay calm, it might mean a difference between life and death. And not just on normal days, but especially in times of crisis, if we take those few minutes to ourselves, to slow down our breath, we can make choices that don’t come from a place of panic but from a place of intuition. This last month after his loss, coming back to my breath has been the only cure to these overwhelming feelings. It brings minutes and at times, a few hours of peace.
The power of Love-
Before Dad’s death, the things that occupied my mind fully and wholly was my own self. Nothing else mattered. My hobbies, my health, my family, my friends, my me-time. Now I realize, and it makes me smile, how ONLY a month has been enough to make me realize in what a shallow and selfish light I viewed the world. How could I have been happy ever, if at all I called that state happiness? Remembering the past makes me think of a stranger who had grown so apart from her roots, her innate kindness and love that she wasn’t happy. Despite having people she loved the best in the world, she wasn’t happy. Am I happy now? No, I am not. But has some light been thrown on the dark areas of my soul and led me back to a heart now fuller of love, kindness and that which truly matters? Yes.
“Those we love never truly leave us. There are things that death cannot touch.” -
JK Rowling must have felt her mother’s presence when she wrote such profound things around loss and love. There is nothing short of personal experience that could have made her write the way she did. While I have read and re-read her books countless times and admired her wisdom each time, it takes a whole new level of meaning now. I can feel it, I can sense it…the ones we truly love can never really leave us.
In things that went unnoticed earlier- in the chirping of birds, in sudden rain, in patterns of clouds in the sky, in a sudden gush of wind that bangs my door, in long periods of silence with nothing but the sound of own breath, in articles on grief and healing that somehow land in my suggested reads, but especially in sudden trickling sensations in my hand and feet when I am at my lowest, I look for AND feel a strong, overwhelming sensation of love and there simply isn’t any other explanation for it.
Papa, you broke my heart by leaving. But I know if it will ever be fixed, it would also be you. Fix it enough to enable me to go on. ❤️ Happy Father’s Day! Roll your eyes Dad, if you must.
P.S. Please feel free to write to me at vasundhara.jha@gmail.com if there is a story you want to share.
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