Grief - From the Other Side

Have you lost someone close to you? Are you someone who's been trying to deal with this thing called grief? Have you been finding it really hard to understand how it works? Are you feeling tired and lost? And most importantly, do you feel lonely, even though you're surrounded by people, who are trying to comfort you? 

Well, come join the gang!! 

Grief - Forever in loving memory 

Ah Grief, the one thing that people want to talk about but don't know how to talk about. The hard reality. 

So if you've been reading my blog and have been following the last couple of blogs, you'd be knowing about my Dada and how we lost him and how it's difficult for us as a family to deal with it. It's been a year and 2 months, but you know what? It never gets easy. It never really does. 

Most of us might have experienced this extreme pain of loss, an irreplaceable loss of a loved one and it's really hard to cope with it. We often have our family and friends trying to comfort us while we go through this grief, but it's not always going the way we want it to, right? I mean sometimes the words of comfort comes across like a blow right to your face. Have you felt that too? 

Whose fault is it? 

It's really nobody's fault. But it's the lack of understanding of how to deal with such situations and what is the right thing to say. Unfortunately, most of the times, it's only when we personally go through a loss, do we actually realize what's the right thing to tell a person who's grieving.

Let me tell you an example. 

After I learnt about the loss of my Dada and came home to Kerala (the funeral is supposed to happen the next day). I'm sitting and home, in a deep dark corner and bawling my eyes out, because the pain is unbearable. I'm lost, I don't know what to do without him, I don't know how I'll survive without him and all these beautiful memories of him flashing in front of my eyes. And suddenly, a neighbor walks upto me and says "Ohh you're crying?" And my first thought is "Huh? You do realize I just lost my father, what else am I supposed to do?" , But then to be nice, I don't say a word, just look up at her and look back to the empty space. There's an eerie silence for a bit and then she goes "so where was the cancer?". In a very weak voice I answer "lungs". And without a blink of the eye she immediately says "Hm if it's the lungs, it's pretty hard to survive. They pass away too quickly". And at this minute, my eyes are literally popping out in shock, because I can't believe this is her trying to comfort me. I still don't say anything and she continues to tell me about a distance relative of hers who had the same type of cancer and did not survive and she's going on and on and on. And all I can think in my head is "It's not the fucking same thing you fucking lady. You don't know how it's because you've not been in my shoes. How is some distance relative passing away the same as my father, my solace, passing away? And how can you even have the audacity to sit and say all these things to me??" But I still don't say anything because I'm trying to be nice. But I'm dying inside. 

To this date, this incident triggers me so much. So much anger and sadness and what not. But it also made me think about a thing. It made me think about how not everyone knows a thing or two about comforting a grieving person. Sometimes people end up saying the wrong kind of things, without realising how much pain you're putting the other person in. 

On the contrary I still remember a cousin of mine, who came to the funeral, she hugged me and said something that made me feel so much better. She said to me "see Thush, you don't have to be strong. You let it all out, let out all of the pain". And for some reason it felt so comforting to hear that and cry my heart out, because it was paining so much, and I needed a good cry. 

As a matter of fact, even I would probably have said something stupid to a person grieving, but today, I know I mean it if I say to you "I know how that loss feels for you". Because I truly do. That's how complicated we humans are. We need for something like this to happen to us personally, for us to really understand how another person must be feeling. I'm no expert. I'm definitely no professional. But I know, many are hurting. Have been hurting for years and it'll continue to hurt for eternity. So through a series titled 'Grief - from the other side' we'll talk about what we could possibly do to help someone grieving.