There is this thing that comes with loss of life. For a minute you feel so confused, not sure of how to react because the news as you received it or came to learn of it hit you so hard that you hardly felt like you are in existence. That distraught feeling of not knowing how to deal with the demise is just the worst nightmare ever. A pain that not even words alone can explain. It cuts deep. Really deep.

There is not a single day I don’t reminisce the very moments I had with the most important people death stole from me. Mum and Grandma. I tell myself that perhaps life would have been different with you around. The knight in shining armors of my life, but how unfortunate! Death itself is the devil’s incarnate! I miss you my lovelies, and I cry dearly in memory of you. Continue resting with the angels. It is said things happen for a reason but to date I still don’t seem to decipher the essence of your departure from my life so soon. And I will probably live in wonder till my own time comes for us to have a unison in spirit.

I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don’t want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don’t want it to ‘not matter.’ I don’t want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it.

Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can’t see.

As for grief, you’ll find it comes in waves. “When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive. ” Somebody once said.

That’s the only option you got to go through to another day, another time!

Take it from me, the waves never stop coming, and somehow you don’t really want them to. But you learn that you’ll survive them. And other waves will come. And you’ll survive them too. If you’re lucky, you’ll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks. Hang in there! It shall be well.

Here’s a few tips I came across to help people or friends in grief:

1. Understand the stages of grief.

2. Know what to say (e.g., I’m sorry for your loss, Do you feel like talking?)

3. Offer them practical help (e.g., run errands, do the cooking, etc.)

4. Provide ongoing support (e.g., don’t just help once; healing takes time and may require more)

5. Be watchful for depression. It easily sets in at this point. Have a friend’s back.