Laughter and Forgetting
It is 5:25 am and I have woken up sweating. Despite the air conditioning. Beside me, my kids and my husband are fast asleep.
It feels as if someone has just been pounding away at my heart with a sledge hammer. Grief is overwhelming and is upon me in colossal waves. It’s been 8 months now since he’s gone.
On the outside, it seems as if I have coped remarkably well. Nobody sees my tears any more. I don’t talk about it as much as I used to. I tell my mom that this was for the best. I feel really bad for my children. (They were very close to him) I tell them too that this was for the best. This was exactly the way he would have liked it. Many people aspire for this, yet few get it. He is lucky. Really lucky. And I smile a big smile to show it is okay.
Inside, it feels so raw. It feels as if someone has reached right in, and scooped out something with a machete, and forgotten to put a gauze, to make it stop bleeding.
Every small thing, still reminds me of something he might have said. His laughter rings in my ears. So do his words, his voice, his cheerfulness, his comforting presence, his clear logic, his positivism—and the way he wanted to brighten every single person’s life.
More than anything, it is the bare and stark fact, that all I have left is memories. One part of me, desperately wants to believe in reincarnation, and ‘soul & body’ concept and afterlife and things like that. Another part of me just says it is nothing but made up stuff, to help you cope with death better. Death is the end. Your body is burnt or buried—it decomposes or the ashes that remain are scattered .That is it. (“ In the end, you’re just the same. Lifeless organic matter.”)
Many of my ‘online friends’ have helped me remain sane, without even realizing it. Most of them don’t even know that I have just lost somebody who meant the world to me, so recently. I don’t tell them. They chat with me online, about mundane things and this and that. I’m still able to make them laugh. And laugh with them.
I forget.For a while.
It helps me cope.
hey preeti! Am so sorry...I respect your feelings and can understand the hollowness, the emptiness you are talking about (as the pic aptly summarises). Time is a healer and it will leave you with positive, good and lasting memories...keep heart!
ReplyDeleteI really felt very bad when I read this post. Bad since, I was asleep when my best friend was up and feeling low. Hey, I know what you are going through. Loss of a relative is very painful. Count on me for any help in overcoming this loss. You cannot undo what has happened but cope gradually with it and slowly try and move forward. If it helps in even a small tiny way, I do not mind being sleepless. You are very special and overcoming your grief is my key priority. I will help in any way that I can.
ReplyDeleteSrikala: Thank You.I do appreciate it. Yes--time is the best healer--but going through it is what is difficult and seems unbearable at times.Eventually everyone copes.
ReplyDeleteSatish: U know me!!
It must be really hard. I can't imagine.
ReplyDeleteI think it's those sweet memories that will help you along the way. It may seem that now you 'only' have memories, but soon they'll be oxygen and less associated with the pain of the loss you had.
Keep strong :)
It was your post about your father that brought me to you, and i wouldn't want him to leave this blog or your memories!
ReplyDeleteThe loss of someone close to you is something I don't think people ever truly recover from. I am so sorry you are still hurting. That old adage, time is a great healer is true but I know that must seem trite right now.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that you are still able to laugh. It shows how strong you really are, even if you don't feel it all the time.
Preti, As another who is left behind in this mortal world, I send to you a ten minute hug, and good tidings and joyful comfort. Sadness shall soon recede like the tide leaving the treasures of this man who was your father revealed upon the beach, for you to see, and to pick up, and to remember. My grandmother (my mother’s mother) thought I was her long lost brother right before she died in 1976. My mom thought I was her long lost first husband (not my father) and said that her mother and father visited her in the days before she died. She was suffering with the damage that had been done to her.
ReplyDeleteIn the end, I told her to leave, to go to be with her parents and my late sister. I assured her that I would be fine (that was a bit of a lie). In two minutes, she was gone. They said she would be alive for at least a week more. Though she was in a coma, I believe she heard me release her from earthly cares and concerns for me, to go to her place of everlasting. Like you, I too suffer at times.
So...we do not know of this mystery as to what happens. I think that somehow we rejoin the entire background fabric that makes up all or this incarnation of the universe. In that, we are rejoined with those who our heart longs for – those saints from our lives who are departed.
On the one year anniversary, he will come back to you. Be someplace that contains things that were dear to him. For me, it was my garden. You will know when he is near, as your spirit will be stilled by Daddy’s presence, and your sorrow quieted as it has not been since the day he left this world.
Devil Mood: Yes--I guess u have a point there.
ReplyDeleteFreelance:Thanks my friend.
Bob-kat: I really appreciate your kind words.
T-bird:I'm mailing you!!
O Great Mother of 2 who have summer vacations...your absence on my blogs haunts me... exorcise the spirits and drop by sometimes... especially now if you are looking for a good laugh... something related to parents and kids...
ReplyDeleteahem..now to seriousness for a while
I know your grief. On some days, the sorrow is more than one can handle...on other days its easier. Sharing your thoughts always help...
but, the one thing that kept me sane... I think of all the good times we had..the various trips all around india, the long chats, the love...
but, life is weird that way... sometimes it takes people when they are not ready..the lucky ones get to live a ripe old age. I believe the person you are talking about was one of the lucky ones...
I know not about spiritworld.
But I know this, if there is another dimension..then its a whole new journey...a grand adventure..
So, do not feel bad for them..they will have the time of their lives there...
and if such a place does not exist..
then,
well, their minds finally have peace. Eternal rest.
I think thats a pretty good thing right?
People miss them..its natural.
I keep saying all this to myself almost every day... don't how much it helps but.. it gets me out of bed...
sigh.
i hate such posts..filled with sorrow. they make me..
anyway.
do drop by for some laughs..I have to...do something now.
am sorry for your lost. forgetting events, periodically that is, is a blessing too, it reduces the pain although not totally...at least the rawness is blunted.
ReplyDeletei hope your memory of him would soon become a comfort rather than sorrow:)
Hershey: Thanks pal.
ReplyDeletelinalani: True.Memories are a strength--but at times they make you long for what cannot be.
For anyone who has lost someone close to them, the writting of Preeti here will cut you to the heart. It is not melodrama..it is reallity.
ReplyDeleteNiall: No--its not melodrama at all--its exactly how it feels.It did not even occur to be that some may consider that i'm being melodramatic.Thats ridiculuos.The pain is real.So is the longing.The helplessness that you cannot do anything.Sometimes unbearable.You will know--Niall.As you have faced it not once, but thrice.You have been an inspiration to me--and always will.Thanks Niall.
ReplyDeletePS I hate this life cos it's just a stupid illusion we all fall for..cos in the end we all die...no BOND is permanent.
ReplyDeleteMy father died when I was 16...he died next to me.
Keshi.
"Forget the past ,live at the present"- some wise people says so
ReplyDeleteWhen going through some thing, its important to continue to walk through to the other side.
ReplyDelete"Success is defined not by not have problem, but by not having the same problem you did last year." ~ Somebody famous
I can understand a little of what you are going through. We all experience loss and grief in our own ways so I won't say I totally understand.
ReplyDeleteI lost my father suddenly and through a violent end two days before my 12th b'day and I still have not gotten over it. There are still days when I want him here as badly as I did when I was a little girl. The feeling of being lost has never left. It happened so suddenly it didn't seem real and there was no good-bye's, no preparing for the worst, nothing. Just here one moment, gone the next.
I don't believe the death of our bodies is the end and at the risk of being laughed off of the 'net I will tell you why.
When I was about 21 I was going through a self-destructive time, not drugs or drinking. I had stopped eating, figuring it wasn't really suicide. I wasn't actually doing anything, just not eating. So, if I died, I died. If I didn't...no big deal.
I was sitting in my room reading and I heard my name being called. I was home alone and so it surprised me and I looked up real quick. My heart was pounding I was so startled. My father, my dead father, was standing in the doorway and he looked at me with a very stern glance and said, "You have got to stop this nonsense, now. Do you understand?"
I was so shocked and confused, I actually answered. I said, 'Yes.'
He gave a quick nod and then was just gone.
No dramatic fading away, nothing. Just gone.
He had never in his life said those words to me before, I don't think he had ever spoken sternly to me before, I had always been his 'little girl' so I know it wasn't a memory. And I wasn't so food deprived that it was an hallucination. I really believe he was there for just those few seconds. Unfortunately, it was to yell at me, but still, he was there.
Your dad lives on in you, your children, your memories. Losing a dear one is a difficult experience. Hang in there.
ReplyDelete