Maybe I'm In A Daze, Not Completely Awake, But If I Could Be Anywhere In The World Right Now, I'd Be

365 Days Without You

I always thought grief would be black and white, monotonous for the most part. Then I thought it would be grey, like the clouds, right before it rained, holding onto as much as you can till you fall apart. But the past year has taught me that grief has colors, colors no one stops to notice or understand, colors I never thought I’d see again...

Sometimes grief would be blue, like the sky that goes on without an end, it was quiet and calm, maybe a little long yet soothing despite the sorrow deep within. Grief was green, like the trees, grass, and weeds that grew on the side of your grave, grief was growth and life despite the life lost. Grief was red, like the million flowers we arranged atop your grave in hopes you could smell them the way we could, red like the anger that kept seething despite all the rational thoughts and beliefs, a little faulty and unpredictable. Then, grief was yellow, it was funny with a little drop of sunshine where you could only think to find darkness, it was proof you could smile despite adversities. Grief is anything but the gloomy, grey picture we often paint in our heads.

I still vividly remember the day I received the call at work. I had only imagined what pain and sorrow would feel like until that moment, and despite knowing the worst has happened, all I felt was complete numbness. I could have sworn I held my breath on the ride home, wishing the car to speed past traffic lights, but also praying not to reach, not to ever find out what was awaiting me at the end of the journey. I was not prepared for this goodbye despite knowing and feeling its lingering presence for months. I was not ready to let you go… 

I had so much to say and yet silence engulfed me whole for months. I could never quite put my thoughts into words the way I wanted to, I could not speak to a wall thinking your presence filled the room or think of you as an angel living in the heavens above, looking down on me. I could not simply pretend you still were here, yet I could not completely fathom your absence long enough to understand that you were gone forever.

Maybe I was a little mad, but more than anger, it was sadness in a way I had never felt before. It was in knowing nothing would ever come close to having spent decades with you ever again. It was in knowing I could never again hold your hand as we walked through the park, never again drink the coffees that you make or share your favorite strawberry ice creams with you, it was in knowing I could never again hear your voice calling me out as I walked past your room, never again having your presence in celebrations and festivities that you dearly looked forward to. It was in knowing you’d never again sing along to the songs that played on the radio, never again waking up in the wee hours to catch World Cup matches, listening to your commentary and supporting Brazil because that was your favorite team. It was in knowing you’d never be the one who takes up the spot right next to me in family portraits and birthday photographs, it was in knowing I have kissed you goodbye for the last time and put you six feet deep where I could not quite reach you the way I wanted to. My sorrow was tied to never having you again, and knowing that there is still much I needed you for in life. It is tied to the absence and void that I now have to live and make peace with because there isn’t much else to do…

I expected myself to feel lost, to go through tons of emotions, behave irrationally, throw tantrums, and spend most of my days and nights in complete solitude. Life was a far cry from what I’d imagined, I spent most of my days after your loss swamped with work and I was surprisingly good at it. And when I couldn’t breathe, I found myself locked in a toilet or curled up on the bed, holding myself together on the brink of losing it, praying to keep it together for just a bit longer. This was a huge loss for the entire family, and with the emotional rollercoaster we all rode those months, I found it necessary to keep all my pain and sorrow hidden. I made the most jokes, recalled your time with us animatedly and did what I could to make sure everyone was okay. Most days, I kept myself mentally and physically busy to the point when I hit the bed, there was no room for thinking, let alone overthinking. All I did for a good six months or so, was work, exhaust myself and sleep.

Life took a complete turn overnight and I was nowhere near prepared for a death I knew was coming and would completely shatter me.

Tell me, how does one prepare for the complete absence of a loved one for the rest of whatever forever we have left…

I am grateful for photographs and videos of you; they bring you back whole to me for a split second every time I catch a glimpse of them. Sometimes, with my eyes closed, I could swear I feel you right here with me. In the moments I spend most alone, most broken and find myself hurting and longing for your comforting hug and presence, I feel myself break in a way I could never explain. But in those very moments, I think you’re somewhere nearby, holding my hands, silently sitting with me, the way you always did. I know you are right here. 

You’re in every flower that blooms in my garden, in every innocent smile and laughter of every child I meet on the streets, in the black coffees I drink every morning now, and in your favorite songs that play constantly on my playlist. You’re everywhere I turn, and it is not painful anymore. It’s comforting to know the things you’ve left behind in the form of objects, routines, and habits help hold me together in knowing you’re just as much here as you were before when I feel a little abandoned in life.

It still feels like you’re asleep in an unknown, unfindable room in this house, I still wait to see if you’d come walking down the hall whenever we gather for family time like you always do, I still think you’re here whenever I turn another corner or sit on your couch waiting for you to magically appear again as though nothing went amiss, like the past year didn't happen. I wonder if I prayed long and hard enough, if you'd come right back and life would resume playing out the way it was supposed to.

Sitting here, I could tell you I did not believe I’d make it past the first 24 hours, let alone a whole year. It feels surreal, like a never-ending dream I hope to awaken from and find you laughing with me as I recall every little detail, but it all feels less probable and more an unchanged reality as time passes by. With every day that begins and ends without you, know that I carry you in my heart, know that every step I take and every single thing I do, will embody you, and it will be something I hope makes you proud.

Tell me what I missed when I see you again, tell me how much you missed me and hold me till I feel whole again, tell me all your wonderful adventures from when you were young again even though I remember every story, every word, by heart, the way I do you.

I will always hold you in my heart for whatever life and eternity there is left to live,

with eternal love,

Rose.

In loving memory of my most beloved grandfather♥️

© Raina Rose 

It's a choice to be in love, as it is to be hurt by the ones we love. It's often those we love, that hurt us the most, because we've given them the ability to do so. We let them have special places in our hearts, prioritise them, their needs and wants, maybe get a little addicted to their company with more time and similar routines and let ourselves merge as though the process often completes us and makes us whole. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But it is a choice, all of it is. And as much as it hurts, that's the beauty in love, to choose to be vulnerable with the ones we love, to give them the ability to see us whole, to see us naked, for all that we are, the flaws and beauty, saints and sinners. We choose to be in love knowing it might just wreck havoc before it's all over. We choose love over and over again, because despite the pain, there is beauty in vulnerability, there is beauty in being hurt by love, by the ones we love. This was our choice, to love and to hurt.

© Raina Rose.

I feel sad sometimes, for no apparent reason and when people ask me why I'm sad, I get angry. Not because they frustrate me but because I don't have an answer. I don't know why I get sad, why my heart starts longing for things I no longer have, why I constantly want things that may not want me, why I wished I could go back in time to a specific moment... Then, there's always this thought that by altering one moment in the past, you could possibly change the entirety of the future. And what if that future turned into something far worse than all that I've been through, what if it brings more pain and sadness than everything I have already been wounded by? What if it resumes from where I've undone, then I'd have to painstakingly go through every moment and try to be better than before but I might just make it all worse. What if I try to undo one by pushing another force into momentum that takes refuge in my life, one I most likely may not endure? So I sit there sadly, sometimes angry, but silently, contemplating all that could have been, all that would be and all that I'll never be able to undo but just live with. I'm sad and sometimes I cannot explain it...

© Raina Rose.

"The night has a thousand eyes,

And the day but one;

Yet the light of the bright world dies,

With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,

And the heart but one:

Yet the light of a whole life dies,

When love is done."

Francis William Bourdillon

I read somewhere that, "through pretence you can make people stay, but you can't keep them", and ever since I can't help but wonder if every bit of me has been a lie to him... Yes, I love books, and stories and songs that says a million things inbetween, I love that the discussions never needed a topic, I love talking about philosophy and spirituality because he understands more about it than I do. But that's just it, I've been talking and keeping his attention because I don't want him to leave. Because if he left, then I'd have nothing left to hold onto. Because I'm afraid that there will be a hole in my heart where he used to reside.

I can appreciate the art darling, but it was more for you and about you than myself or anywhere between the lines of us. I love fiction and fairytales, I love stories that give me a break from reality, where for a short while I can be someone else and feel a million things without being apologetic about it all the time. I love songs that mean something than the ones that say too much just to fill the run time. I love movies that are romantic, I love stargazing, I love the mornings just a little before dawn where the whole world lays silently waiting for the Sun to rise to name a brand new day, in those moments, I feel life for everything that it is. But, whenever I am with you since the thought, I can't help but believe a little that somewhere inbetween I must have lied or been something else, for you've stayed this long and you never, truly stay. So I have to let you go because I can't keep up this pretence and feeling of uneasiness that I'm playing you a tune I never quite liked myself...

© Raina Rose.

I used to listen to songs when chatting with friends, sometimes the songs are on repeat and then I start associating those songs with them. Everytime the songs come on, I naturally think about them and the conversations we've had. And then one day, he left. I listened to a variety of songs from plenty of my playlists that I started losing my mind when each one came on. I deleted them all, even the ones I've loved as much as him. It was better this way, because when the songs come on and he's not there, I don't know what to do with all the useless tunes, words and melodies that rise within me. What do I do with all the love and songs left inside of me that once used to belong to us?

© Raina Rose.

Sometimes I lay awake at night and wonder, had I been a lot like her and less like me, perhaps you'd have fallen in love with 'me' too...

Sometimes I see her down the hallway and wonder, why you loved someone like her? Was it her hazel brown eyes that glistened amber under the Sun or was it her crystal smile and endlessly long hair?

Sometimes I see you sitting in that bench alone, floating away into another paradise, completely consumed by your thoughts. In those moments, I wonder if it's sadness that I feel when I see you, hurt that I couldn't be there too or love for the man who even in pain would choose silence and serenity over everything else. In those moments, I completely lose myself all over again, falling in love with you.

Perhaps I need not be anything like her, for to love a dream like you, one must be something different altogether...

© Raina Rose.

It is true; the day he fells completely in love with you is the day you won't feel a damn thing for him. Why does it have to be this way? I trace the length of your skin and I used to know my way around you, this was a familiar route, but now, I get lost even when I'm home. I try and listen for the sound of your voice, your laughter, but all I do is tune out and lose you eventually. I knew your fragrance by heart, but I swear, it's fading everytime I think I know exactly what it is. I tried and tried and drank and drowned in bottles of bourbon hoping to taste you again. Cigarette buds everywhere, ashes carried by the breeze, landing over spaces once we used to live. Just the way our melody got lost in this rhythm of wind and time, even if I tried again, you'll never be mine...

© Raina Rose.

I woke up in a daze, it was 3am. Pulled the phone from underneath my pillow and dialed your number with my eyes closed. It was then that I realized we weren't a thing anymore, there was no relationship between us, no name for the distance that bridged the two of us together anymore. I stared blankly, it took me awhile to process the information, for me to completely fathom that you and I are two separate entities now. It hurt for a bit, then I tossed around in bed to see my vanity standing empty. You used to leave your cigarettes there. It hurt again. I covered my face with my blanket only to realize how much it smelled like your cologne and the bourbon you spilled the other day. It hurt more. Caving into all that should have been, I played the audio you recorded in my phone last summer. Your laughter, your words, the way you said my name and the song you sang, it was all painfully beautiful. How can something so beautiful, so precious, so loved become something so painful, so broken and so empty? I couldn't feel my heart anymore. It was 3.30am, my sleep was gone and so were you.

© Raina Rose.

I packed my bags and got ready to leave. Took a last glimpse and kissed him on his lips. This was goodbye. I picked up my bags and started walking, wait, my hands trembled and I couldn't move. Suddenly, the brave decision I made last night crumbled to pieces as he tossed over in bed and reached out searching for me in thin air. There there love, I'm right here, where I've been, where I'll always be, right by your side even when it's killing me...

© Raina Rose.