Grief

COVID-19 Lockdown musings

During COVID-19 Lockdown, like all of us, I struggled to reconcile with many realities. However, again, like all of us, the lockdown gave me time to think. The result was a series of pieces written in a journal-like form.

In this piece, I was overwhelmed with my attempt to make sense of the grief that the pandemic had swept around me and the people I love.

Grief

Dear Diary,

I heard somewhere that to move on from grief is not about overcoming it or pretending like it never happened, it is not about bouncing back to where you were before said event.

To overcome grief, one must learn to live with the consequences of it. We must learn to live with the effects of grief on our lives and accept that these effects exist within us and around us.

Just like a sandstorm, you will never outrace, you must stay and weather through, you must try to survive the storm and survive the grief, and once the storm is over, you must learn to clean up the mess that comes after and accept the mess you cannot clean.

I am learning to make a home for myself in grief, to find peace within it. I am learning to grow roses in a soil-less land. I am learning to harvest the dead crop from this lifeless earth and make a life here. I will make life here, and it will be beautiful, it will be new, magical, and full. I will make life here where many tried and failed, I will make life here where many tried and succeeded so well.

There is life in lifeless earth, I just have to be patient enough to find it, to care for it, to harvest it, and to reap its fruit.

I am learning to dance dutifully the dance of rain, to bring about a storm that will wash away these scandalous bruises. To resurrect this land of grief, to make life from it, and bring life to it.

I am learning to make a home for myself in grief.

Till next time.

Amina