The Things No One Tells You About Grief

In a weird twist of fate, I lost my father a month before my 40th birthday. In a way the timing seemed appropriate — child, you’re all grown up now. Like many, I had a complicated relationship with my father (another post on Asian culture, repressive masculinity and mental health required), but the hard truth is that his passing leveled me. Even I was taken aback at the intensity of the emotion.

I’ve never lost anyone truly close to me. Let alone cremate them and immerse their ashes. The first thing that hits you is the finality of it all. It’s over — end of an era, end of that part of you. This form, as you know it, will never return. (I do believe that spirit endures which is probably one of the things that has kept me from completely losing my shit). But the flesh and blood and tangible presence — that’s gone for good. I think that’s where most of the initial pain and shock emanates from.

The other thing that struck me as we said our final goodbyes at the cremation hall, is that you truly go with nothing.

You don’t get to amass your favorite possessions and tuck them under your arm before they call your number. You don’t have time to make a playlist, or dial a friend. You simply go.

Maybe you leave a material legacy. Maybe you leave an emotional one. Maybe you leave just a void. It really does make you think though about what you spend your time on.

One thing I was not prepared for is how differently close family responds to an immediate death. I suppose this one is obvious, but growing up under the influence of Bollywood movies in which everyone has the same copy-paste, over-the-top reaction, you’re not really prepared for the fact in reality, people grieve differently. Some are angry, some are numb. The people you least expect are emotional and some will surprise you by being eerily distant. Some contemplate their relationship with the deceased, others with their own mortality. Some people just don’t like watching others cry.

It’s hard not to take it personally, but it’s actually not personal.

I’ve understood that being in the same room as death is one of the most unsettling things a human being can experience, and that everyone deals with it in their own way.

Even in grief you notice though, who reaches out, and in what manner. I don’t count who calls on my birthday and I don’t send out new years greetings. But I will always remember who was with me then.

And I didn’t understand this either until I lost my own father: The ‘Dead Parents Club’ is tight group of people who live with a particular void and who will show up with an endless reservoir of support and empathy.

Even if they’re not your closest friends, they’re all too familiar with your pain. They’re the ones who will call every few days to check in, because they understand that the pain comes in waves. Some days you’re fine, the next, curled up on the floor in your room. It’s a process. And at the end of it, you are without doubt, changed.

The saving grace — and I think that this is the most important learning — is that with intense grief, overwhelming joy can exist. My sister and I spent the two weeks after his death with our closest, laughing harder than we’ve laughed in years. There’s a slightly urgent undertone, you must laugh. There must be light in darkness. It’s how human beings have endured through the centuries.

Here’s my only piece of advice: Expect nothing of yourself. Until something like this happens in your life, you have no idea how you will feel. So laugh, cry, sleep, meditate, drink, fuck, work, shop, breathe. Your universe has shifted and your soul must adjust. 30 days will not be enough. 30 years may not be. There’s no right way of doing this. So find yours.