Grief is Love

If there was no love, grief would not exist.

“What is grief?” I asked myself silently. 

Rain lashed my face like icy tears, and I sank to the floor. My mouth widened into a screaming O, but no noise could crawl from my strangled throat. I was drowning in those tiny raindrops, unable to breathe, unable to make a sound. I existed there for several lifetimes, until I forgot my purpose, my beliefs, and even my name. My depression was a state of limbo more painful than life, and more permanent than death. 

 The door may have closed, though I never stopped praying for you on the other side. The door may have closed, and yet I never stopped grieving. Several years later, a faint voice whispered through my heart’s familiar memories, interrupting my thoughts and daily routines, and I found myself once again returning to those long evaded questions: “what is grief?” and “how will I know when I have healed?” I used to evade these questions much in the same way that I would attempt to evade any thought or memory of you. Perhaps this was because I had no sure answer, nor closure. But even in the happiest of present moments, I could not deny that you were still a part of me in some way, and perhaps always would be. 

There was always a significant part of me that longed to wait, though I did not consider it healthy to stand idly by and wait by a closed door. I may have moved on, but I have never forgotten you. I always found some way to include you despite us going our separate ways, and it is because of you that I now have a collection of gnomes in my home. I often find myself listening to classical music to decompress at the end of a very long day. Whenever my mind seems to be captivated by fear or anxiety, and in those brief, fleeting moments where I feel like ‘I just can’t’, I reach in my pocket and I feel that chess piece and suddenly, I am reminded that I can, and that faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains. 

Four years later, I finally discovered the answers to these long evaded questions that I had all but forgotten. I grieved you much like I would a death, and the healing process was the equivalent of cauterizing a gaping wound. Excruciatingly painful, but necessary for survival. What started off as an open wound eventually healed into a scar, with the help of time, healing, and forgiveness; and it was then that I realized that the main difference between a wound and a scar is that the latter is no longer painful. Even though I was able to forgive both you and myself, the scar was yet still a reminder of a painful experience. The moment I realized when I had actually and truly healed was when even the scar had faded, and all that was left in its wake was a memory. No wound, no scar, just a memory. I no longer grimaced every time I had a thought of you. I realized that I had finally and truly healed when I was able to remember you fondly, and smile. 

 But even so, perhaps the most important and complex of questions still remained, “what is grief?” Grief does not always come in the form of death, and yet the pain and emotions remain the same nonetheless. In the midst of my most agonizing moments I realized that grief is simply love. Grief is simply love, but in a different form. Grief is simply love, but instead of standing side-by side, that love now lies behind a closed door. Grief is love that had to go away, or perhaps even journey down a separate path. And sometimes, all it takes is for you to hear a familiar song, go to a specific place, hear a certain phrase, or for the sun to hit just right on your face and suddenly, you feel that person with you. In that sense, grief is sneaky; it is swift, like a fox. Eventually you learn how to adapt, but grief will always exist. There may even be brief moments where it still feels heavy at times, but do not diminish the love and memory by allowing grief to become a monster that engulfs you and leaves a dark void in your world. You’ll know when you have healed when grief is no longer an enemy, tainted with dark memories, but rather a friend.. accompanied by joyful memories, followed by a smile in remembrance. Once you are able to recognize grief as what it truly is, which is love in disguise, you become well acquainted. The key to healing is to allow grief to become a friend rather than an enemy, a friend walking alongside you everyday, simultaneously bonding over fond memories.