Maybe it was an on-going process which was
triggered by that immediate tragedy , but I do not recognise the face I see in
the mirror any more, I don’t recognise my words, my voice and my soul. I have
become someone else, as much as notional this may seem I am not me anymore.
I know there is nothing that makes my
experience exceptional than any other person who has lost a loved one to life
or to death, but still such is the nature of grief and loss, it dents each soul
similarly and yet differently.
Being a parent myself to an emotionally and
physically dependent young child still, I did not have the luxury to pause on
that loss for long or to even grieve as it came naturally to me.
Weeks after the last rites and legal
formalities were over, in the middle of Maths homework, or cooking dinner, or
just having a cup of tea a sea swelled inside me. I wanted to howl, tear my
hair out, shout at the world and at the sky to reduce the gigantic unseen
burden on my chest, but I couldn't because it would have scared my little one.
Instead I chose to write, read, internalise
a lot of grief as a soundless, tearless sobbing or when the deluge just
wouldn't stop retire to the washroom to silently let it out for five minutes
and come out with a washed and wiped face, and if she asked lie, “I am looking
like this because I am not too well today.”
There were friend lists and phone books but
vast unending loneliness that resounded, I craved for human voices, I wish
someone would make me a cup of tea and comb my hair for me, I wished I could
sleep and some magic could finish all the household work. In those moments I
felt all my physical energy had been drained out by something inside me.
Grief I have learned the hard way is alike
an invisible tether, it won't show its face for hours or days together, you
would start feeling it is no longer holding you back and it is gone and then all
of a sudden when you least expect it, it will tug at your heart and soul - at a
hospital entrance looking at an elderly gentleman, at a park, in the middle of
a haircut and then there is no warning, nothing you can do to prevent it. The
wave overwhelms and drowns you often also leading to a lot of public
embarrassment. Trust me it is not attention seeking, because all you want in
that moment is to be invisible to the world, because who likes pity anyway!
Grief is also a slippery path which leads
you down and down into the dark well of depression, you struggle with every day
things, you lose your ability to emote, to decide, to respond. All this is
deadly as a parent and as someone who doesn't have many friends with whom you
have daily conversations, someone who doesn't socialise much, its hold on you
grows stronger and more stifling by the day.
The challenges from other areas of life only
add up to this huge hollow that grows like a malign tumour inside you.
The commonest advice comes from all sides -
just snap out of it, look at the positive in life, be practical, all these
“demons” you talk about are not real, do it for your child's sake, but you know
while you try to hang on to every bit of miraculous remedy suggested there are
moments when you keep falling faster than ever into the darkness, trying to
grope for words, hands, hope, anything that will hold you together.
I have
always believed that when Shakespeare wrote “The lunatic, the lover and the
poet…..One sees more devils than vast hell can hold….” he was so right, but
being at the brink of losing your sanity is not so romantic after all. So you
start strengthening the facade of strength around you, you maintain a strong
exterior throughout as you crumble bit by bit inside. Hypocrisy, yes that’s
right.
Being strong emotionally for long periods of
time even outwardly or superficially or in the insensitive face of the world also
hollows you from inside, the human need to be understood and loved is
universal, especially when you are going down a mental health spiral.
Unfortunately a lot of people close to me
also went through a similar loss around the same time, but eventually I saw
them overcome their grief and smile back at life faster and sooner. Strangely
their stories did not inspire instead I started feeling even more overwhelmed
and inadequate to face what they had overcome successfully, right before me.
What is worse this disease of the mind and
the soul doesn't show, there is no excruciating physical pain that twists and
turns your body, no visible wounds or scars, no blood tests that can testify
that there is a monster living inside you and that the torture is real.
A silent clawing inside you that you hope
doesn't get denied as a mood swing or a tantrum or worse still a sympathy-gainer.
This apathy that you witness around you even from people you thought you were
the closest too, just fastens the process, it intensifies the alienation and
losing hope becomes reality.
Then comes the worst low, you think the only
way out is death because you cannot continue like this. You start looking at
every fan as a possibility to hang from, at every terrace as a possibility to
jump off.
Here is that thin line that holds you back,
for me it was my child.
I lost a parent a year ago to death, a sort
of milestone that flung me off the road completely. I lie battered, bruised,
and down and out to say the least but as long as a little hand is in my palm, I
know I will keep up the fight.
I am so grateful for whoever stood by me and
sent me strength, and I more grateful to those who didn’t, because they granted
this insight.
Peace.
