On Loss and Grief
Life is really sick and twisted. My last blog post was in celebration and anticipation. It was published on the 2nd of December but I wrote it in the late hours of the 1st and scheduled for it to launch the next day. I talked about my anxiety about the transition to adulthood. I talked about how I hated change, and how life-changing and altering shifts in my life made me uneasy. I didn’t know what was awaiting me in the days to come. At that moment all I knew was I had a rough couple of days after not matching my dream school through Questbridge. I felt like it was the end of the world. I didn’t know I was about to feel like my world was ending.
Life is so sick and twisted.
Life is so sick and twisted. On the night of Saturday, December 3rd, I came back from work and was mindlessly scrolling Instagram, when I found out my friend of 10 years had been murdered that morning. I remember violently shaking and feeling like I was having an out-of-body experience. In the days following I violently swung between denial, sobbing, and silence. I felt unhinged and the farthest thing from my mind was my birthday, adulthood, and transitions. And I just had to keep moving, to keep going, keep living while my friend was just gone, because I had college applications to start and finish, finals to go through, and life kept laughing on. I spent months crying every single night. I would finish my homework, and college applications at school, at work, and outside of my house, because I knew the moment I walked into my room, I would collapse under the weight of my grief. It felt cruel for me to lose a friend again right at the cusp of something refreshing and something new, right at the edge of a new journey, right at the beginning of my prophecy of “18 being the best year yet.”
“I hear the whisper underneath your breath. I hear you whisper you have nothing left” -Lauren Daigle
I was so angry for such a long time. Like a deep soul anger, and a deep soul ache. I was angry and confused. This was the same guy I had dinner with, and who had invited us into his home when our apartment burned down, and he was the one who took my friend’s life. I didn’t trust anyone and most of all I didn’t trust myself. I was jarred beyond compare. When we got back to school, a counselor pulled me aside, and said “the grief will come in waves, and you have to let it.” Wow, how necessary has that been for me. In 3 days we will hit 5 months since her death. I have been ravaged by loss and grief in ways I will never be able to pen. But life has been beautiful. Despite its cruelty, life has been more precious to me. More costly, more significant, and more beautiful.
The light must return, there is no other alternative.
In my grief, I have become more demanding. I remember writing and noticing my writing was more forceful. There is something about death and his greediness, life, and her cruelty that makes you want to grip them by their throats and demand your portion. In the midst of my early grief, I wrote out a demand that I have continued to echo and a demand I hope is echoing through this post “the light must return. there is no alternative.”
I have survived loss and grief. I no longer feel unhinged, but the ache remains. But this loss and grief have taught me one thing of many, and that is that the light must return. there is no alternative.
Side Note: Songs That I Listened To
Rescue by Lauren Daigle
Thank God I Do by Lauren Daigle
Oh My Soul by Casting Crowns