The Void and on filling it !
How do you define emptiness? The
opposite of fullness? Not quite… I’d
rather say it’s stillness, a dangerous silence, blankness and having no hold –
that’s my definition of emptiness. Today my heart is filled with emptiness. The
death of a friend shook me and made me spill my grief here.
The heaviest heart would be the
one that enters a home after burying a family member, more so if it’s a spouse
that has just left to heaven. Nothing can express the amount of pain and the
depth of that sorrow that just engulfs one when they return home, only to find
themselves more alone than ever before. The near and dear leave to return to
their lives, children not sure of what’s in store for them next and all that’s
left is the empty heart and life of the spouse. From the departed’s shoes, as
you enter the home, to their belongings that lie scattered all over the home,
each pulling one string of the heart! What to do to get over this moment, each
second seems to be still, and most difficult to get through. How many unsaid
words, I wish I had’s, we should have’s, I forgot to tell you that’s, apologies
and things that waited for the right moment to convey that sweep over like a
huge wave on that heavy mind’s floors.
We all read, life is short, men may come and men may go, time is
precious, and quotes like them every day but we can only realise their meaning
when we lose a loved one.
Where to begin? Is it the very
moment the unexpected death happened when life came to a halt just like the
screech that’s heard when brakes are applied all of a sudden, or even worse
when it hits you as a news received on a telephone. No death is less painful to
the human mind –be it that of a person who dies at 100 after being through it
all or a baby who dies seconds after being born. What pains the most is this
sudden unannounced trait of death that just snatches that person away from our
life in a second before even we can realise what’s happening. It just leaves a
void that can never be filled by anyone -
their memories, their words, their habits that you’ve got used to all
these years just keep ringing in your mind, bringing out all the tears that
your eyes can make! A huge chunk of sadness just blocks the throat causing
difficulty in breathing, constant tears rolling down the cheeks and a tiredness
of the full body like never before. The mind and body go numb!
As days go by, their thoughts get
more daunting, turning into anger as to why they bequeathed this sorrow and
vanished. In the book, On Grief and Grieving, David Kessler and Elisabeth
Kübler-Ross explain the five stages on how people respond to a loss - denial,
anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. This process helps learning to
live with the one we lost.
One of my favourite quotes is
Samuel Decker Thompson’s “We are all just a car crash, a diagnosis, an
unexpected phone call, a newfound love, or a broken heart away from becoming a
completely different person. How beautifully fragile are we that so many things
can take but a moment to alter who we are for forever?” The
only way is to slowly learn to interweave them and the happy moments spent with
them into our daily lives and getting on with life.
Also what’s more important is to
keep in mind is how precious each relationship is and to value each other and
say what’s on your mind to them and have no regrets in life whatsoever. Each
day counts and live life as if today was your last, easier said than done, but
it is what it is – the hard truth called life!
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