On Grief

Sooner or later we will all lose a person or pet we loved for the first time. As time passes, that loss will not remain the only one. And while we may grief every single loss, our grief is always different – at least to some degree – as we don’t love people exactly the same.

The first loss I ever experienced was the death of my guinea pigs. I was sad, but I also was only 6 or 7, and it isn’t till a child is about 7 that they are able to grasp the permanence of death. It was at around the same time that my mother’s youngest brother died by suicide.  But since I had met him no more than a handful of times (if that often), I wasn’t grieving. It was the first time I saw my father crying, though, and I still remember how shaken and scared I felt because of that. That was the thing that made me realise that something really bad had happened.

It wasn’t till one of my two godmothers’ died after battling cancer for over six years when I was 16 that I felt grief because of the death of a person. We weren’t very close, but I had always liked her. I also remember feeling heartbroken for her daughter, who was only 6 or 7 years old. I cried a lot for a day or so and wished that we could attend the funeral, but we were on vacation at the other end of the country at the time. To this day, I also still wonder if her death affected me as much as it did because I had witnessed a horrific car crash with multiple casualties less than a week earlier— something that was never talked about.

The other two people I truly grieved were my paternal grandparents. My grandmother died completely unexpectedly in December 2014. And about a fortnight after my ordination in January 2021, my grandfather died. I have never cried as much as I did the weeks after their deaths, at their prayer services, and at their funerals. And even now, I still feel myself getting sad and often choked up when I think about them. Which isn’t surprising, considering that they were two of the people in my life I loved the most.

On the other hand, I didn’t shed a single tear when my maternal grandfather died, even though I liked him as well. But I barely knew him at the same time, which is so weird.

[What happened] Anyways. While I had meant to write a blog post about grief and dying for a while now, I thought I’d write other things first. Yet here I am, feeling heavy and sad, and things I can’t really pinpoint and name.

Yesterday, while I was visiting my parents, my aunt (aka my dad’s sister) called their landline and told my dad that her husband had died. Apparently, he had just toppled off the chair he had been sitting on. He’d turned 80 in January and, over at least the past decade, had had multiple heart attacks and open-heart surgeries. So we all knew this would happen sooner or later.

My heart is breaking for my aunt, my two cousins, and their children. And I think the sadness and heaviness I feel is partly related to their grief. I’m sorry that he is dead, and I’m not really sure what I’m feeling at the same time.

He could be difficult and was very opinionated, with some of his views being outright racist. I also often felt like he didn’t see me as an adult but still as a child. At the same time, I know that he loved his family and was loved by them. So, my feelings for him and about his death feel rather complicated. Not to mention that I feel weird and even ashamed for not grieving (as far as I can tell). Despite knowing that there is no “right” way to grief and that it is okay not to feel (very) sad when a family member dies. I keep telling people this all the time when I meet with them to prepare a relative’s funeral and talk about how they are doing.

I guess I know what I will talk about and try to process in my next therapy session. Instead of continuing where we had left off last session. But that is okay. I’m actually glad and grateful I have that non-judgemental safe space with my therapist to talk about complicated and mixed emotions, etcetera.