Journal Prompt: What does grief teach us about living?
Week 1/52: Grief is a fucking slow burn.
Hi lovely humans,
How are you? We just conquered the first week of the year and I hope everyone is holding on to a sense of normalcy despite these trying times.
I, too, am taking countless leaps and making the most out of this month of firsts. I started a newsletter (welcome, you!), I’ve successfully updated my Notion workspace for 2022, and I, but mostly my husband, built a mobile food cart.
The thrill of doing Firsts at the beginning of the year can be exhilarating, I know. But in the in-betweens, some remnants of the past year remain intact, unprocessed, and bothersome.
So for our First Order of Conversation this year, we share this space to talk about grief… and all other unprocessed emotions brought about Death (in whatever aspect) that we tend to dismiss amid all the chaos in 2021.
“Who died?”
There’s this one particular friend that reminds me of Death.
You mention Death, and I instantly think of her.
Before her passing, my idea of a “death announcement” is seeing a photo of a candle in a black background used as a profile photo on Facebook. It’s a single post flocked with “Condolences” in the comments that would keep me wondering, “Who died?” And upon further prodding, I would know in an instant.
That’s the simplest notion of death I have. My brain isn’t wired to understand it as a personal experience.
Grief is such foreign territory for me that I remember bargaining with God, especially when COVID became a thing: “God, don’t make me face grief in this lifetime. I don’t think I can handle death. I can handle ANYTHING but Death.”
It’s not that I am afraid to die. I haven’t been in the face of it to articulate my true fear of dying. My fear is people close to me will eventually die. It’s simply an unimaginable experience that a vessel of truth and soul would just stop existing in a blink of an eye.
Would I bawl my eyes out just like they do in telenovelas? Would I consciously wear black for the rest of my days? Would I lose it?
I had no idea until that one day came.
I woke up to a normal day. My daughter is in an unusual zen mood lying next to me. I checked my phone and saw the numerous notifications that demand attention from me.
I opened one of the chats, and then there it is: “Idk if alam nyo na pero wala na si *****.” (I don’t know if you already know, but she’s gone.)
Just like that.
She’s gone.
Unresponsive. Unreachable. Non-existent. Gone.
Dead-gone.
This Week’s Journal Prompt
What does grief teach us about living?
It’s a question I keep on asking myself days, weeks, and months after that incident. “What does this teach me?”
Why does this need to happen? What do I get from this? How do I move forward? How do I make sense of non-existence? What awaits me and my loved ones in the future if I die? If they die? Why does death feel so unnatural, so intrusive when it’s a known fact at the moment of birth?
Grief gives life to a string of unanswerable queries about humanity. Grief is a fucking slow burn.
So what does grief teach us about living? Remember that moment when you found out about the death of a loved one or a dear friend. How will you describe the days that follow? Because for me, it was an unfathomable mishmash of melancholy, rage, and confusion. Guilt. Regrets. A surge of joyful memories flashing back. Remembering. And then forgetting.
What does grief look like to you? And what did it teach you so far in this process?
If it helps, you can share your side of the story with me, a fellow grieving human being.
Gatekeeping Grief: Self-Transformation, Loss, and Talking About Death
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an expert in grief and emotional wellness. Therapy can do that for you. For us.
In the past months, grief and death tried to force their way into my life. An uninvited stranger that made me angry, unavailable, and unhinged at times.
I’m so used to being in control of my life that I even tried to gatekeep grief: I shouldn’t even be grieving this much. Maybe we’re not really that close. Maybe my level of grief is not as significant as her inner circle.
Maybe grief expires today.
But it does not.
My friend’s death has kept me skeptical about my life. Has she really elevated to a higher plane of existence? Is the afterlife a real thing? Is she happy? Is she okay now? Does she think about the potential she left here on Earth? Is she aware of the love she contained in her body and shared with us? Does she know that we miss her? A LOT.
Grief gives life to a string of unanswerable queries about humanity. Grief is a fucking slow burn.
And it put me in conversations about other people’s deaths. In an attempt to process my grief, I’ve talked about death with other people and tried to normalize it.
But it feels like it’s an inherently painful experience.
I’ve seen people become misty-eyed over stories of their loved ones giving premonitions about their deaths.
I listened to a friend talk about a picture-perfect, written-for-the-gods account of his father’s passing. You wouldn’t believe it’s true, but at the time of his father’s death, he was practicing a declamation piece called “O Captain! My Captain,” and it goes something like this:
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.
“Papa is my Captain.” I’ve seen his grief, his mother’s grief, and his sister’s grief in his eyes.
We are all gatekeeping grief from ruining our lives, and in the process, it transforms us.
As If It’s My Last
“Kung ‘di na ako aabot sa susunod na Pasko, pakisabi kay Jigo, ito na ang pinakamasaya ko.” (If I don’t make it next Christmas, tell my husband this was my best one.)
The impermanence of life and certainty of death has always reminded me that I’m not here for long. Grief taught me that important lesson.
That one friend of mine who died last year was full of hopes and dreams, not only for herself but for the nation. For humanity. But alas, dreams have dead lines too.
And whenever I’m sucked in a void of productivity, money-making, and big city dreams, I keep on reminding of myself: “They could be grieving for me tomorrow. My hustle is temporary.”
There’s this concept from the Japanese that I recently learned. It’s called Ichigo Ichie, and let me pull a quote from the book to explain it better:
“一期一会
We set about deciphering those characters, pronounced “ichigo ichie,” while the damp wind swayed a small bell hanging from the eaves of the teahouse, making it ring. The meaning of ichigo ichie is something like this: What we are experiencing right now will never happen again. And therefore, we must value each moment like a beautiful treasure.”
—Excerpt From The Book of Ichigo Ichie by Héctor García
Grief, when powered with rage, brought tiny cracks into our home. After all, I was grieving not only for friends who passed but for a younger version of me that I lost in the past years. I was angry for losing parts of myself and the people I love. Forever.
And so grief, before it became a villain in my life, turned into a friend. Grief taught me to let go of the temporary.
It reminded me of Life.
It made me think of how beautiful Life was for my friend.
It made me realize how beautiful Life is now for that one friend who braved through the passing of his father in the most dramatic and traumatic way.
Grief allowed me to live again—outside the bounds of dreams, wealth, and all that’s temporary.
How about you? What did grief teach you?