The Everlasting Spiraling Sea of Grief

When he died, acceptance came first.

I didn’t feel shock nor denial. I felt a keen sense of foreboding. He had been suffering for a long time and it was time for him to rest. It was supposed to happen and it had happened.

I remember crying at his funeral and talking to each newcomer that wanted to say their last goodbye. It was a never ending flow. Even when I didn’t want to cry, my tears seemed to come out in commiseration to all those that cried around me.

I learned the hard way that grief isn’t linear. Its stages aren’t progressive either, at least not in my grief.

Mine is a spiral.

The same feelings visiting and leaving me with different luggage sizes and mementos.

Coiling and uncoiling, making me feel one, two, five emotions at the same time or none at all.

The understanding of finality - that I will never see him again, talk to him, or think about him besides memories or posthumous predictions - didn’t come with that first acceptance.

It’s still something I haven’t completely reached. Often times, I think of him as being. It usually happens when I wake up and am disoriented. While praying, his name almost tumbles out of my mouth along those that are alive. Or when, whilst talking to my mom, I want to ask how he is.

Acceptance proved to be a shallow feeling that must be dug hard to become deep. On its way to becoming permanent, acceptance cracks like porcelain under the weight of sadness, anger, love, guilt, hope. And, it’s also re-glued by those emotions as if they are liquid gold.

Weeks after he had passed, I recalled our last interaction. The way he was pressed against me, my arm around his shoulders. He, who had always seemed like an imposing boulder, was leaning against me as if I was his mountain.

“We won’t travel like we planned”, he said, referring to the bike rides he had wanted us to do in Europe.

“Don’t worry about it”, I said kissing his temple. “It’s alright.”

These had been our last words to each other when he was conscious.

Many weeks later, laying in bed and remembering it all, I cried long and hard for the first time since his passing. It felt as if I was finally mourning him.

Mourning isn’t only about sadness. That much I understood. What I didn’t grasp was how tiring and long grief could be. Coming and going at its own volition, like an uninvited guest, into your mind, body and soul. I hate it almost as much as I love him.

Several years later, tears still spring to my eyes when I replay that scene in my mind. Specially the last words I said to him. Lame last words to tell someone you love so much, I know. I like to believe that, had I known that was going to be our last moment together, I would have said ‘I love you’. But we were never big on expressing our feelings. We never knew how to say the words. We only knew how to love, messily, completely and, sometimes, painfully. I can only hope he knew that he was - and is - forever ingrained in my heart, as I know I was in his.

It is this kind of love that makes mourning almost unbearable. I didn’t expect it to be so aggressive and raw, almost ripping my chest apart, clawing at my throat, burning my eyes and skin. I always knew that, unless I was to pass first, I would have to go through it.

I didn’t expect it to make me fearful of the other griefs I will still have to face.

Months after his passing, I caught myself angry. Not at death. Death happens. At him. Not for dying, but for leaving us so unprepared to carry on with life. With his life projects, goals and desires.

There is nothing more daunting than continuity after a loved one has passed. To resume what a loved one started but didn’t have the chance to finish due to a shorter life than expected. He had never really taught us how to give continuity to all he had in his place. He didn’t leave a manual. He didn’t seem to care about anything that he had built.

I was angry because I had to carry on and I didn’t have him around to ask, to feed from, to demand guidance.

He left me, us, without even a ‘good luck’.

I was angry because he had time to pass on his knowledge, his objectives, his plans but didn’t. I felt like his fall guy and I hated it!

How could he do that? How dared he?!

It felt as if he decided to prank us and leave, saying ‘good riddance’ over the shoulder.

Grief overwhelms and suffocates. It’s not likened to a sea over nothing. It can reach us both calmly or tempestuously. It can feel like quicksand. It can be like a foggy day. It’s angst. It’s pain. It’s love. It’s blinding. It’s clarifying.

It took me a while to calm down. To push the anger and frustration out of myself. To get a clear mind back.

I don’t think he did it on purpose. Or, if he did, it was without intended hurt. I think he didn’t want us to make the same mistakes he made.

Once my brother told me about hearing him muttering that he had done it all wrong. That he had focused on the things he shouldn’t have and left aside the things he should have focused on.

Tears always threaten to come back when I remember this. I think about a dying man regretting most of his life and wishing to have done it differently. Or, perhaps, praying that we wouldn’t follow in his footsteps.

It pains me that for all he had done and built in his life, he had so many regrets.

The cruelty of knowing this is that I can’t help but wonder all he would have done if he had recovered. The beauty of knowing this is that I can strive to learn from him and aim to do better.

Some times, grief is like being in an everlasting bain marie. Other times, it’s like a punch in the gut.

It’s as Keanu Reeves said when asked what happens when we die: “I know that the ones who love us will miss us”. The missing never stops, which is why grief seems never-ending. It comes and goes like waves in a sea of emotions, delivering and taking away all kinds of feelings. It's like we are mourning them and ourselves at the same time. Because, if it’s true that we keep alive within ourselves a part of those we loose, it must also be true that they take a part of us with themselves when they leave.