Lessons Learnt

from something as implacable as grief

There is a reluctance in me to write. Rather baffling, given that writing provides me more relief and clarity than any other form of therapy. Often, I don’t even understand what I am feeling or thinking, until I write it all down. Part of my writing journey is to figure out this reluctance… this fear if I were to give it its right name. Fear of confronting my losses and the finality of it, fear of judgement and criticism, fear of failure… a nice, long list. All too often, I put it off until I no longer can. Until the act of not writing is more torturous than the act of thinking-writing-thinking more clearly-and-rewriting. Of course, I am always writing in my journal, but I don’t consider that kind of writing, writing.

Anyway, I am here. Mostly because the mental storm caused by the not-writing phase has reached a crescendo and I am in danger of imploding.

In my last post, I had written about taking grief out of the closet and sharing some pointers on how one can support a friend, family member or even an acquaintance who is grieving. In this post, I want to write about some of the lessons I learnt along the way, things I did for myself, the habits I adopted that helped me with my grieving process*.

This was taken in a London subway. It was the last holiday we had taken as a family. We didn’t know it then. It had been a blast and the three of us made so many wonderful memories. Make good memories with your loved ones while you can.

1. I became friends with being vulnerable and with tears. Watching Sakshi battle cancer with grace and honest vulnerability taught me that acknowledging our emotions and being honest about them is not a sign of weakness but of incredible courage. I no longer apologise for my tears. If my tears make someone else uncomfortable, I now know that it is their problem, not mine.

2. I learnt to ask for help – be it during Sakshi’s treatment or in the aftermath of her passing. We are taught from a very young age that we need to be self-sufficient and independent. Needing help is considered a sign of weakness. (Who made these rules anyway!) Ask for help. People want to help. They just don’t know how. Ask for help. The world will surprise you, and pleasantly.

Two years, four months and 23 days (at the time of writing this) later, some of the old walls of wariness and guardedness try to spring up again and I have to consciously work on staying open. At the same time, I have also become more intentional about who I ask for help, because I have more clarity about the kind of help I want, and how much.

3. After Sakshi transitioned (a word I will discuss in greater detail in another future post) I was surrounded by love and care. But the only place that I felt truly heard, seen and understood was in support groups for parents dealing with the loss of their children. On these groups, I met many others like me, floundering, trying to tough it out through unfamiliar territory, and also met many others who have walked this thorny path longer than I and who reached out and held my hand. Support groups for bereaved parents saved my life. Find your tribe – in person or online. We are out there.

4. I did come across people who were insensitive – deliberately or despite their best intentions. Their own unfamiliarity or discomfort with grief, and in some cases cultural norms and societal expectations guided their speech and actions. This would cut through me so sharply that it would be a while before I could even begin to feel the reaction to their words, actions or inaction. By the time I could think of a response, (even an unemotional, unwise one) it would be too late to respond. I would also be too tired, too defeated, and too everything to fight, argue or explain. I learnt to leave such people behind, to their learnings. I learnt it is okay to walk away.

5. I learnt that sometimes it is necessary to explain. No one can truly understand me, even if they have experienced a similar loss. My response to a situation is not just defined by the event but by my basic nature, so while X can pick up the pieces a year or so after the death of a loved one, Y may end up battling depression for the rest of his/her life. And sometimes, when a friend sits with me and says, “I thought you were doing okay, but yesterday you were so quiet. Talk to me about what you are feeling,” I explain. The world doesn’t know what to do with grief. We have unfortunately been put in a position where we can educate them.

6. Like most parents who were the primary caregiver to their terminally ill child, I have had to deal with guilt and trauma. I am still working on processing it. There is no escaping the ‘I should haves,’ ‘I could haves,’ ‘why did I nots,’ and the ‘if onlys’ of this world that stab us continuously. Each one of us will have to find our own way across this valley of thorns. Over time I have come to understand that there is some truth in that pithy, cliched statement – life unfolds as it should. It is what it is, and you cannot fight it; maybe for a while but eventually fate or whatever you want to call it, does win. Understanding and knowing this has freed me to a large extent.

7. This is not a journey one can do without a crutch. I began to re-lay the foundation of my life with help from nature and my spiritual belief system. Whatever be your crutch – spirituality, religion, science, nature, family and friends, books, dancing, exercise, cooking. Lean on that crutch how much ever you want to and can. [Just don’t mistake alcohol or drugs for crutches; they are just disguised as one.]

8. I have had to work at forgiving myself – for all the what-ifs related to the disease, for scolding her when she was younger (because I can no longer go back and rewrite that situation or apologise for it), for all the petty, ugly feelings I have felt towards every single happy person on earth. I have felt rage (I hope everyone dies), envy (how come they are happy while I am so heartbroken), bitter (no one else has experienced the grief I am experiencing right now) and like a victim (life is so unfair). I have had to work on not judging myself for being human and am learning to be kind towards myself.

9. As Sakshi lay in a coma, in the last hour of her life on earth, I promised her that I would make her proud of me. That one decision continues to guide me… every single day. In that moment, I knew that I will grieve as honestly and fully as I know, and I will do it for the rest of my life, but I will also not indulge it or be defined by it. It is a choice I made. Life can throw you under the bus, life can throw cancer at your only glorious child and snatch her away, life can turn from a promise to a curse, and life can seem interminably sad, painful, long and unwelcome. But every morning, we get to choose what we are going to do about it. Epictetus, the Greek Stoic philosopher said, 'It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it, that matters.' There are no rights and wrongs here – just what works for us at that point of time in our day and life.

10. At some point when you feel ready, begin to reclaim the things that give you joy. Be it trekking, writing, painting, visiting museums or parks or meeting up with friends for coffee, travelling. A part of you will be in conflict with this choice – you will feel that you are betraying your loved one by doing things that are fun. ‘How can I have fun when he is no longer here?’ you will ask yourself. But know this – the only way you can betray your loved one, their spirit, their memory is by living a life imprisoned by grief.

Grief is here to stay. Nancy Miller, author of Griefland, and Daring to Breathe: Stories of Living with the Foreverness of Grief, and a dear online friend who like me walks on this thorny path, said to me, “The grief is always there, but after a very very long time, Binu, it's almost as though it becomes in some strange way...an old friend. Not a placeholder for your daughter, but just a presence that you welcome through your front door, offer a seat to, and just give it space to share with you.”

I am learning to live with grief… not scream in terror and run away by burying my head under the pillows. It is a work in progress. I am a work in progress, not just with regards to dealing with grief, but everything that goes into making a life.

Thank you for reading and being a part of my journey.

If you know someone who you think can benefit from my experience, please do share this post with them.

*Disclaimer: These are choices that worked for me. Grief is universal but is also subjective, so the above points are not a how-to list, but a try-it-out list… just stuff that I am experimenting with, habits and patterns that I am working on changing. If you have found methods or routines that worked for you, please do let me know. I am working on developing and adding to my personal grief tool kit, because as with everything else, sometimes our tools lose their sharp edge and are no longer as effective.