All About Death (unedited)

With the recent demise of my grandfather, the past few weeks have been very disturbing for me. I have been through such varied emotional phases in this short a time, that when I look back I feel is something wrong with me or is the natural process of coping with grief? I’ll begin with my current mental state with making references to the vacillating emotion states that I went through during this time.

While I write this down today, I am somewhat at peace with the fact that death is imminent. I am trying to accept death in its raw form without any associations with spirituality, biology or any other field that gives some comfort against the harsh reality of death. As I explored through varied articles all over the internet, I found out that how accepting death and not only of your close loved ones but your own self is important in living your life to the fullest. I am quite spiritually inclined, and so it becomes difficult for me to deny the fact that there is a single existence from which we all have taken form and would submerge into that same energy or force back after death. But I guess I would have to learn to let go of this.

With the death of my grandfather, I suddenly realized that how inevitable death is and would one day come for all – with no exceptions whatsoever. Until his death, all other deaths of people even in my extended family hadn’t affected me in the way this death has. It was the death I saw at my own home, of someone who I was really close to, with whom I had spent more than twenty years of my life, the one whose absence have definitely affected me in myriad ways because I was so attached to him. I saw his dead body lying there on the bed in my whole senses, with my entire consciousness, with emotions in full play. It wasn’t a death of someone I had never seen in my life, or of someone whom I had met only at functions, or of a relative’s relative or friend’s friend – it was the death of my own grandfather with whom I had spent day and night together for these twenty two years, with whom I had bathed with, in the childhood, had woken up to his voice, had slept on lonely nights with and had been spoon fed food by. He was the one with whom I had shared my experiences of happiness and sorrow, the one who had given me advice on every path of life and decision that I took and the one whose hand full of blessings was always above my head. So, his demise left me feeling insecure and lonely in a way. Moreover, somewhere in my subconscious I still hadn’t been able to accept the thought that he was gone and maybe I still haven’t accepted it either. The fact that he was gone while I was off to college has left me with some kind of remorse that I couldn’t bid him a good bye. Somewhere in the deep layers of my mind, I had this constant thought and wish that had I been there when he was a boding heaven, I would have at least said a goodbye. Although I know that wasn’t quite possible for the natural way he left this world, even my mother, in whose hands his soul left, couldn’t say last words to him.

All such thoughts left me with a feeling of void. I felt that loving people is dangerous. Initially, I felt numb, with occasional outbreaks of emotion. I shared my thoughts and feelings with my close friends who were constantly there for me as support. But they too ran out of consoling words as time passed and I felt that maybe I was the only one unable to cope with the death because everyone else in my family didn’t much uttered words of sorrow now and then. My friends started repeating themselves that I need to move on. Although I knew what I was supposed to do, all I wanted was to vent out my feelings, get my emotions out. Out there to all my friends who are reading this, you people have been really supportive and I am glad for that but all I want from you people is to just listen when I am upset and griefing, just comfort me and be there to say that everything will be okay. I don’t need advices at that time unless I ask specifically. I have realized this in my mourning period for my grandfather and I’d really advice everyone else going through such phases to be open in sharing their thoughts with friends and family. It helps. A lot. And if you are a friend then please just listen, there is nothing else required, your presence is sufficient.

Death of a loved one made me feel that this world is pretty useless. It made me realize that how one day all the people I love be it my mother, father, sister, aunt, every good friend I have, will leave me and this world to never again return back. I too will one day depart from my loved ones and that is how life would go on. In the process of leaving – either me or my loved ones – people would be hurt. I thought life was all about happiness, about living and achieving dreams and success, making fantasies come true. But alas, it turns out that it was all half truth I should say, because the complete truth is that although life is all about happiness, it happiness by overcoming grief, it is about living and achieving dreams and success but only after going through hardships, it is about making fantasies true but only after losing certain other things and taking certain other risks. With the demise of my grandfather, I wasn’t the direct responsibility bearer of the house after him but I felt a much higher responsibility of being the eldest child in my family, of being the supportive daughter to my parents, of being the adult human I am, of being the living being with moral duties towards the life and nature I am living in. All these new found responsibilities and fears of losing the people you love instilled fear in me. I was fearful to take on anything that pushed me out of my really comfortable comfort zone. I tried to find peace in everything I did earlier to calm myself down, watching videos, spending time with family, with friends, talking to them, meditating exercising – but nothing was much working out. I then realized, the problem was not with the activities I was doing but my want and desire for things to be back to what and how they were. Then a few days before, a moment came while reading the experience of another girl like me upon her father’s death, when I realized that yes, things would never return to what they were. This realization and acceptance gave me peace. I agreed that yes, the earlier normal has now changed. Now, a new normal would be created. I think I was in denial but when I accept that how things really are, I am better able to move on and look forward.

These days, I am already facing a mentally exhausting face due to a crucial time in choosing my career field ahead. With the psychological and physical expansion of my mind back in past months, my attitude towards looking at things in life has changed drastically. How little things like exams used to be high on my priority list and now the day has come when I am writing this article the night before my exam with more than half the syllabus remaining. I just have accepted that life is not about giving exams. Such academic endeavors do not shape our life. Moreover, when I think about death and the insignificance of my and in fact all other lives in view of it, I just feel that maybe it is better to do certain other things better in some ways than exams. I hope my new found wisdom gets honed with time and may my learning curve never diminish. Everytime I am trapped in a dark room, may the corner of my eye always catch the slightest line of light peeping at me to hold on to. May each ending like this always be the beginning of something new!