Losing a loved one.

I suppose this is how it has to be. It seems like this is always how it has to be. It must after all be written down. I guess this is how I became a writer.

Every time you pass

from here to there

I become an island

blossoming on a perfect spring day

to let the volcano erupt

and bury everything in lava

because I know

I'm one of the few

who can take the burn

because I know

tomorrow, I'll bloom again.

I lost my maternal grandmother today. Nani. That's the word we culturally use to refer and call our maternal grandmothers. Nani.

She was so many things. She was your average person. Completely ordinary and exactly why so special. She was of a generation from a culture where she never got to be a woman. She was a daughter and her parents married her off at a young age. A very young age, and she became a wife. She never went to school, didn't know how to read or write. So, she took pains to send her children to school when she became a mother. She was a good mother and a bad one too. She was a good person and a bad person. She stood up for the right things and stayed silent for the wrong reason. She made some commendable choices in life and some regrettable ones'. She was human. Just like any other. Her presence changed and touched many lives. Both for good and bad, just like all of ours do. She was my Nani. Her existence resulted in mine. Her life choices effected my choices in life. I loved her. I still love her. For me, nothing has changed. Even if she is no longer part of the human race. For me, she like everyone else, is eternal. To me, all death is, is energy changing its form. Energy is neither created, nor can it be destroyed. It has always been a comforting thought. I mourn. But not her.

Mourning - it is a strange and alien thing to me. It has been that way for a long while now. I circle around the same thoughts every time someone passes on, while literally walking in circles. If I were the only one left behind, I'd be happy. Happy and excited for her. If I were the only one left behind after the death of each person I loved, I'd honestly be full of joy. Because to me, they'd finished a marvellous project and started a new one. I would have sent them love and wished them the best in the new adventures to come. I would've told them that I was right there by their side as always and will always be. Supporting them. Loving them. Giving hope and taking inspiration. That's how I'd feel. But since I'm never the only one left behind, that's how a part of me feels. Not all of me, just a great big part of me. That's always colliding with the other part.

A collision that leaves me feeling hollow and numb. A collision that makes me question if I'm right or wrong, If I even know what is right or wrong. If I can even trust in knowing the conclusion of such a self evaluation of my emotions and thoughts. If I'm really sane. In that moment, I'm always grateful Guru told us to sing Sohila. If not for that, I may have never trusted my own natural self. My own instinct and emotions. Because my first reaction, emotions and instincts are always in major conflict with how mostly everyone else left behind reacts and feels. That is what always starts the questions. And I'm someone who always has to go looking for answers. Even if I have answers, I revaluate my previous answer every time a question is asked. To see if the answers change. To see if they should. Or if they remain the same.

I do not mourn the loss of a loved one. I do not mourn them because I cannot comprehend the loss. A life ends. Sure. I acknowledge that. The body loses all function, decomposes and becomes something else. I acknowledge that too. But if we are all just star dust anyway, what even is the beginning? What even is the end?

What I mourn is the regret, the resentment, the sorrow and dread that is left in their wake among those that do remain. I mourn in acknowledgement of their feelings and emotions. I remember being destroyed from inside out by my own feelings when I truly thought death was the end and I'd lost a loved one. I remember that pain and grief that felt so sharp that it could cut a diamond. I mourn because regardless of how I feel, their feelings should take precedence. I mourn in understanding and solidarity. I understand them and hope, someday I could be understood too.