The Girl Who Cried Grief

What is grief? Grief has been nausea, some of the time; at other moments, it’s an airless tightness in my chest that I can’t breathe away. It felt like a piece of my identity and a lot more that was familiar, and necessary, was gone. The only thing that felt good for a while was laying in bed and watching Elite on Netflix. I wanted to have my thoughts, all to myself. I turned into a zombie. I liked Elite better than staying grounded in reality. Mornings were the worst; every time I woke up, my dad wasn’t there, and the shock of that was always new. No tickling, no Saturday morning ritual of Ridiculousness, nobody comforting me when I cried. All of that was over, suddenly, and then little by little. Grief snuck up on me. I still remember the act of showering when I got home from the hospital. I had to scrub and rub away my feelings. I thought it would cleanse me, and bring my dad back. Afterward, when it didn’t work, I just sat there in my wet towel contemplating my loss. It was a guilty feeling of overwhelming regret. If you lose someone, grief numbs you out. For entire months I just wanted to feel something -- anything -- but I couldn’t keep up with my own life anymore. 

Grief doesn't follow a linear path; the “time” of grieving isn’t like normal time. A week after my dad passed, I was in a tennis shop with a friend, looking at skirts. Suddenly I dropped the one in my hands. It had been an entire week of my dad’s being gone from my world, and it scared me to think that more time would pass. I stopped moving; I just wanted everything to stop. 

Sometimes, unexpectedly, you get a reprieve from the way grief hurts. I still don’t know what my dad’s death is “supposed” to feel like; I wonder about it all the time. In this blog, writing is a way to deal with grief coming at me like a wave. When I feel an emotion that’s too big to speak about, I write it down. This blog is a place for me to put down my thoughts, worries, and memories, so I don’t lose more. I’m scared of forgetting my dad. When I write about him, the image of him is clear in my mind. He lives on, through words and pictures posted here, that won’t be forgotten.