Can We Share Grief?

Loss in life creates voids in us. However, I am experiencing something no loss ever left me with. I am witnessing that loss of a child creates a void so big that it engulfs one entirely, leaving nothing of what one used to be. As a different person, one with no aspirations, no hopes, no thoughts of a future, shattered beliefs, and changed perspectives I find myself trying to find a ground to barely walk every day. And to walk, I feel I need to learn again.

It's not that the world changes around you. It essentially remains the same. Everything is the same. But the adjectives to all life around me are lost. When I say this sort of loss engulfed me as a whole, I literally mean the person I used to be is no more here. I can clearly demarcate how I have become someone I don't recognise. I feel I am left behind in those moments when I am with my child. I familiarise with only the nurturing, sometimes overwhelmed, constantly engaged with one task or the other person, as any mother of two would be. There, in those moments, in those very thoughts, I feel safe, confidant, and myself.

Dear Aabi, when we lost you, we also lost ourselves. Our loss is now a constant, maybe an ongoing thing. Every day, your sister loses a little more of the home that was with all of us together. Every day, we witness her losing her childhood a bit more as she tries to learn to be with parents who are now different people. Every single day, we learn to wake up without you, we learn how little we mean to this world, and how everything that has to happen will happen. As free as this thought sounds, trust me, there is nothing that might feel more hopeless.

Also, our parents experience losing not only their sweet little granddaughter, but their other granddaughter and their own children, to a place unknown. Every day, our brothers and sisters witness the enormity of this loss as they try to reach out to us, and we remain lost, not knowing anymore who is ours to hold on to. Our family experiences our absence, not knowing how we don't really recognise what family feels like anymore. Friends and family seem like alien concepts to us as we go through each day. What overtakes us is something we have not yet identified. What I do know is that an 'autopilot mode' is activated, and we pull through.

I wonder, can we or will we ever be able to share this? The grief that is now a part of us, a feeling that feels familiar all the time, a place that we dreadfully seem to be safe in, can we share this grief? But an even more important question that trumps this one is, SHOULD we share our grief? Our grief is all the love, all the emotions, and all the warmth that surrounds you, that has you, and that is for you, my darling Aabi. It is holistically all that we were with you, and all the happiness with you. Yet, it is also the moment of losing you, the moment of realisation that 'we' are now without you every single moment. It encapsulates losing all those little moments of mischief, warm cuddles, soft smiles, gentle touches, chirpy mornings, loud car drives, fun outings, and hope-filled feelings of everything around. It surprises me how wide-spectrum a small word like 'grief' is, holding both love and pain together.

So, can we share all this with anyone, ever? I really wish we could. Although I realise with every passing moment how difficult it is. As much as I try, as much as we push ourselves to share, we are overwhelmed by the feeling of not being able to explain the love and demonstrate the loss fully. How will anyone know what the void feels like? How can they experience love with no recipient? How can they know what it feels like to cook for one child when you actually have two? Will I be able to express what I am feeling when I walk the same grounds where she once walked with me, holding my hand, in my arms? Can I ever fully convey what I go through as I navigate through each and everything all day long every single day? Even if I am able to, with all the effort, how can I expect anyone to share this feeling with me? This hollowness, this emptiness, hopelessness, fear, and this unrecognisable fog that soaks all our energy is something I never would have experienced even in my scariest dreams. And it can in no way be realistically shared with anyone.

This isolating situation, the disengaging feelings, and the everlasting pain dissociate us in countless ways. This grief of child loss has somehow burned the strongest of bridges and has us standing at a place where we have no choice but to endure this. I want to confess that we are here without our consent. We never chose to be without our baby, and we do not choose to be without family and friends either. This is a territory where we never belonged, and yet it is now more ours than anything else. Something we were not prepared for, and something we do not know how to assimilate.

We honor the hands that come to hold us, the hearts that pour out the love, and the thoughts that have us, but even more, we submit ourselves to anyone and every heart that has space for our Aabi. For we accept that we are not who we were. We come with our grief, and we will always come with our Aabi. We, like any parent, like any sibling, and like any family, love to talk about our child. Irrespective of the state of our child's presence, they stay a part of us, just like ourselves. The tears are of the pain of not being able to have them in front of our eyes, but our conversations will have them in every way. We will never be us without Aabi, and she will continue to be our present, for we choose no today without her.

When we stand up again, walk again, and begin being a part of this world again, a world that moves on without our little child, the only choice we have left is whether we want to always carry her along. To hold her in us is to remember and keep who we are.

So I say, I do not know whether we can share the grief or not, but I do know this is the way it is now. Another important question that might remain: can everyone or even anyone accept what we bring to share anymore? The grief and love will always come together. When shared becomes an unspoken exchange of gratitude where acceptance is mutual and wholesome. A natural flow of care and effortless building of new bridges.

To all grieving parents, siblings, grandparents, and family members, hold the ground on which you stand today, for that is all we probably own. It is on this very ground they stood with us, and it is on this very ground they will always be found. This place is small, confined, and constricted, yet it warmly accommodates all the emotions the universe can carry. It is here that I dedicate my life to my little child, and it is here I will raise my other one with all the love I hold. This is all I have of myself, and this is all I will always have to share.