It can't be fixed, only carried

I am still not ready to write about the loss of my grandpa, the greatest man I’ve ever had in my life. I hope one day I can give a home to the feelings I’ve hidden in my heart. But I read something that I didn’t want to forget and that is at the core of the things I feel, even two years from the worst day of my life.

No one at the funeral will tell you, but I will.

You don’t just lose them once. No, you’ll lose them over and over again. A thousand times, in a thousand different ways, every day. Sometimes multiple times in a day. It is a continuous never ending cycle. One you’ll have to endure with each reminder of their absence. You will feel as if you’re traveling in two different directions every second of every minute. For each moment that passes, you are crawling further and closer to them all at once. And it takes a lot of courage to look forward to the future when you wish you could just go back to yesterday.

It gets lonely, and you’re never really okay. But, that’s the reality of loss.

It can’t be fixed, only carried.

Yesterday, as I was tidying up my room, I stared at some of the items I have kept. Three shirts remained folded on a shelf in my closet; three shirts that know the countless times I’ve hugged him in. I thought I was ready to wash them, but instead I stood there, frozen, holding their empty shapes. I can’t get rid of that longing wish that they could hug me back.

There’s no healing from that feeling.

So, I carry it alone, tucked away in a corner of my heart. It, grief, is a weight, a quiet and unyielding companion living with me for the rest of my life.

And maybe, in time, I will come to realize that carrying it is a testament to the depth of my love. That the ache of grief is inseparable from the beauty of what I had—and what, in a way, I still have.