As I lie buried six feet under the wet earth, I wonder who will stay and sit next to my grave. When the world moves forward, I wonder who will keep remembering me in their everyday thoughts and mourn the loss of my eternal absence. I wonder, will the world remain unchanged without me, or will there be that one person forever altered by this bitter farewell?
If I were to go before mom and dad, I fear they would be the ones to lose the most and bear the heaviest burden. There is a term for children who have lost their parents — orphans. But I have never heard a word to define parents who have to bury their children first. Perhaps because the grief they would endure surpasses the most agonizing sorrows. I wish to shield mom and dad from that anguish, just as I wish to spare myself from the agony of losing them.
Speaking of death weighs upon my chest. The memory of my grandmother’s final moment two years ago haunts me. She held my hands tightly while coughing very hard before being rushed to the hospital, and after that, she didn’t come back home alive. I feel the remorse of so many what ifs. The thoughts of I could’ve done better come, and I realize the moment I had with her wasn’t that much to remember now. I slowly forget how her voice sounded so weak while asking me to eat. Grandma always spent her afternoons sitting next to the window on her wheelchair, looking at the road and people passing by. One day after she had gone, the wheelchair was still there, remaining empty, left only with her sitting prints.
How long does someone deal with grief? A year, two, a decade, or an eternity? For me, I think it feels like an endless journey. The abrupt absence of someone I cherished, someone I saw or spoke to every day, forces me to face a world where their presence is replaced by a void. To whom shall I turn when the longing arises? To whom shall I speak when their presence is needed? None.
Yet, grieving is not merely for the dead. It is much more bearable knowing that they are already in a brighter and better place than where I am right now. But the grief of the living is a different agony. I have to share the same world as those whom I once loved, but now the distance is so crystal clear and far that I think I can’t reach them anymore. I remember I had a childhood friend, and we used to spend noons playing together and skipping naps; we parted ways a very long time ago, and I never heard from her anymore since then. And those memories slowly fade; the life I had so beautifully is no longer in my mind, for not even a bit of it remains.
Grieving for the life you used to witness and those you could have had is terrifying. That’s why I think I need to romanticize it, not because I am invulnerable to it, instead I choose it as the way for me to cope. Either way, I commemorate those who have shaped me into who I am today by keeping them alive forever in my mind. One sure thing is the void inside won’t be filled and will forever be left gaping, but this little space in my heart is proof that I once loved. I once loved so big that when my loved ones are gone, they leave me an empty hollow that is so miserable to fathom.
But now regret no longer stains my grief. I understand that it is all my love with nowhere to go, the unsent ones that I shall keep forever on my own. It is the love that pierce the corner of my eyes until they tear up and stick in my throat until I choke; it is embedded forever in my heart that every time my heart beats, those unspoken loves that I once had come back to life. Yes, I am wounded and sore from this grief, but at the same time, I find a peculiar form of healing.
