Dear Grief, nothing is meant to be, but…

By Liv Dunleavy

Editorial Staff

Dear Grief, 

I think of you often.

You never leave my mind. You’ve moulded my life around the gap you’ve left.

This year, I lost my whole world. I’d never known what a loss was like, and that was a privilege I’ve never wanted to have but one I never wanted to lose. Every year I grew more aware of my double-edged sword of griefless-ness.

I thought about the possibilities, morbidly, who would I lose first? Do I have the emotional capacity to lose someone I’m not even close to? What does death feel like when you’ve never lost anyone?

Dear Grief,

I write to you often. I read to you often, complain to you often, and you exist in my many emotional states. My poetry, prose, and random outbursts of my mental breakdowns are what I devote to you occasionally, less often now.

I follow many social media pages. They post relatable content so I don’t feel alone. I like and comment when it pops up. I cry at poems and laugh at memes in the middle of the day. I teeter on the edge of delusion when I walk into the places that used to hold a physical space for him. I reach out for a body that no longer occupies that space.

Dear Grief,

It's been six months now, a half of a year. I don’t want you to leave me. I couldn’t live with myself if I couldn't lean on your uncomfortable yet comforting shoulder. There’s a part of me that angers at the silence of my peers. People who know his name and do not say it often.

And it’s not their name to speak, but I feel like I’m pulled into a tug-of-war. A side of me wants to keep him to myself. To hold him and protect him and kneel at his side and beg for forgiveness. Yet, another side of me yells to the skies to speak his name, to scream it loud and hope that he will come running at the sound of our cries.

Dear Grief,

Do you think of me? If so, what do you think of? When you think of me, Grief, what do you imagine?

One thing I always said before I met you, Grief, is that everything that happens is meant to be.

Life may change and things may happen, but things do happen for a reason. I don’t know if I was naive or if I thought accepting fate or destiny would lead me somewhere great. I don’t know if the crap I told myself would work out in the end.

Do you experience the pain of grief or is it just me? Is it just us, reader?

Do we feel grief mindlessly, like a post we happen to fall upon on Instagram, or does it control us? Does that post trigger the grief like a switch, and it flares to life to loom over your day?

I’ve never known a feeling so overwhelming yet numbing as grief.

It consumes me at any moment and can make my emotions spike so intensely. It can make me laugh in a way that makes me cry in a way that makes me hurt - it’s a cycle. One that I can only describe as personal.

When I think of my boy, I think of him fondly. I think of him sitting on the windowsill. I think of the shows we used to watch, and the warm blankets we used to share, and the throw up I used to clean up.

Thinking helps, thinking hurts, in the end it is a part of grieving regardless.

I write him letters, I sing him songs, I believe when I walk in the door he will still be there waiting for me.

He’s not.

What they don’t tell you about grief is they never come back.

I want you to know that it’s OK to not want to let go. I don’t care what your therapist says, or what those self-help books say, or the people around you who think loss is just something that you can grow to live with.

Grief will come in many forms. Grief takes the shape of your imagination and molds to your emotions. I know the weird uncomfortable feeling when you find yourself happy or smiling like a fool and pause like a deer in headlights.

You stop smiling and you pause, scared like you did something wrong.

You didn’t. It's OK to feel. It’s OK to laugh, cry, scream, smile, any emotion you feel is one you should not feel ashamed for.

Grief is not one emotion. Grief is every emotion.

Dear Grief,

You’ve gone and tricked me again. I still hear the snores and chitters when I walk in a quiet room, I feel his fur when I dream.

Sometimes I think I’ll never truly accept that he’s gone. I still believe every day that I will walk in my house and he will be there and all I needed to do was walk out and back in like some sort of weird house reset button.

It can feel sometimes like I use him as an excuse. I try to discourage that thought. It’s not an excuse. It never will be. I will carry this pain with me for the rest of my life.

I could be having the best day and be brought down to the trenches with emotion at the mere sight of something that reminds me of him. 

Dear Reader,

When you grew up, did you experience any loss? Was it someone you were close to? Were you alone, and did you feel like everything was at stake? How do you feel now, however long it’s been since that loss?

If you have not lost anyone yet, I feel for you. I know it might be hard and scary - it was for me. I didn’t know how I’d react, if I’d be able to pick myself up or if I’d even feel anything at all.

You are not alone. I don’t know what you’re going through. I only know my own pain. But I know what it's like for me and I know that no matter what your circumstances are you deserve support. For whoever you grieve, for whoever you miss, here or there, just know I’m in your corner.

It doesn’t have to be your best friend in the world and it doesn't have to be recent. Grief never stops.

You are valid.

Dear Bizzle,

I love you so much. I miss you every day. I will never stop speaking your name. You are my everything and more. I dedicate this and many more words to you.

We all love and miss you here at The Gatepost.