When you lose someone you love, your world crumbles. Your days and nights become living hell. Every night becomes a nightmare of tears, memories, and insomnia. Every morning, you wish you didn't have to get out of bed. Then, the tears dry up. You can't cry anymore, but the grief doesn't go away. It envelopes you and nibbles at your insides. It’s almost a physical pain that won’t heal because you’re gnawing at it constantly - because you can't get the person off your mind; no matter where you go or what you do, memories relentlessly flood you - everything you see and everything you do reminds you of the person you've lost. It makes the grief unbearable. Everything becomes an effort – to talk, to eat, to dress, living itself seems like an effort that’s not worth the trouble. Then, you become desperate. What you wouldn't do to bring him/her back! What you wouldn't give to hear that voice one more time, to see that smile one more time, for one last conversation, one last hug, one last goodbye...but nothing will change. You can cry till you’re blue, you can "if only" endlessly...nothing will change. It's the final bow and the curtain won't come up. Ever.
Then, you quieten down. You resign yourself to the fact and you learn to live with your grief. Time will not heal a loss - it will only make it worse - but what Time does is, it teaches you to smile through your pain. It teaches you to function inspite of it. It also does something else: It makes you completely fearless. You forget what it is like to be afraid. What can you possibly be afraid of after you've faced this? Suddenly, you can look Life in the eye and say "Is that all there is to it?" It's strangely liberating - that you've gone to hell and come back and you’ve survived. It also realigns your priorities like nothing else can. Nothing seems so important anymore - we're all going to the same place...alone, carrying nothing with us.
This is one of my dad's favourite quotes: "Time is Nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once. When we talk of tomorrow, the Gods laugh." I never tried to understand what this meant when I had my father. I understand now, Daddy.
