How are we meant to quantify grief?
I think about how we all sat in silence at dadi’s house after dada’s burial – silence heavy with the magnanimity that can only come from pondering death. A permanent loss in countless ways – loss of presence, of soul, of existence. A loss of conversation awkward and pleasant, of interest feigned and genuine, of a memory sharp and a mind astute. A loss of love for food consumption. And overly sweet chai. And clothing perfectly pressed. And dentures meticulously clean. And a loss of hellos and goodbyes, of bending down for a kiss on both cheeks, of “jite raho, salamat raho”-type routines.
But even though we were brought together under the umbrella of grief from dada’s passing, that was not the only type of death heavy in the air. Death is a permanent loss but is not purely defined by someone being deceased. Substantial death is a loss of love, and it was the loss of love that struck me in that room. In one corner, resentment from a sickness destroying a unifying love between two people. In another, pieces of a broken marriage left stagnant for so long that the heart outgrew them. In the third, the possibility of love kept alive by will but desecrated by the cool edge of rationalism. And in the fourth, an endless search for a love non-existent. We were brought together by one grief, and we stayed for a multitude.
I realized then that such silence can’t be pregnant with only one kind of loss, because lives are never limited to a singular loss. The quantity of loss is plentiful, and the grief from it compounding. And when there is so much compounded loss in one room, with it comes the silence from thousands of unspoken words, from unexpressed emotions, from griefs shoved aside in hopes of one day being less jarring.
Maybe that’s why we come together in collective grief, as if our presence as a unit can somehow ease burdens and alleviate individual suffering. For a moment, I can allow the losses littering my existence that are so substantial in their isolation, to become negligible within the larger context of dada’s passing. I can let go of the pains that we drag around heavily in our veins, and I can allow myself to mourn for the departed – for my grandfather, and for others that are alive but that I continue to yearn for.
In death, there is loss. But in death, there is also unity – a comforting legacy to leave behind for a life so wholly lived.
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