Until We Meet Again

Do we stop grieving over our loved ones?

Does time really swipe away the despair, the intense pain that we once felt?

By saying once felt, do I mean that I don't feel it anymore? 

Does the void ever fill itself up ?

 Do we fill them up with anything but the memories, 24 years of it, that we cherish ?

One thing I understood about the way we feel about our loved ones is that they are not their silhouette, they are not their appearance. They might be a little bit of their skills but that can be acquired they might be a little bit of their voices but that can be imitated. So this makes us question what it is about them that makes us identify them ? As our own, as our loved ones ? 

The answer is abstraction. Abstraction is something that is not physical. It can be an idea or something that you feel but cannot show. Everybody experiences abstraction of feelings and since it is common to everyone, despite the lack of demonstration we still understand what abstraction of feelings are. 

Abstraction of feelings, abstraction of emotions. It is not the physical but what transcends the physical. The particular smell of theirs, the joy upon hearing their voice, the security upon having them covered us, the exhilaration upon just them being around. 

You would attribute this to a physical form which when existed incited those emotions. But no. 

That's abstraction,  joy, mirth, happiness. And all these are but ideas, concepts which act as stimulus to evoke the abstraction. 

When I speak of the abstract of emotions I felt a big one three years back on this day. I tried my best to willfully forget the happenings especially, what preceded and what followed. I tend to retain only which has changed everything. 

Nevertheless, the abstraction here I felt was of great sorrow. Sorrow, as we know, a deep sadness because of something unfortunate that has happened. 

Three years back it was unfathomable for me to think of having to write what I have felt in a state of mind such as the one I find myself to be in right now. It is not the very best of the state but stable enough to use my best memories with the best person of my life and use it to my strength. 

Things change, for better or worse, they do change.  

Today marks the third anniversary of the passing of my beloved father. Here , I was thinking of not being able to feel the waves of sorrow, as hard as I felt on 17.11.2020.

What followed afterwards was lamenting, a profound or demonstrative expression of sorrow, an outward demonstration of sorrow and I have demonstrated that in the most passionate way possible. The headaches, the heartaches, the choking on my own gasp, the nightmares all contributed to my lamentation. 

They say, grief is a complex experience in which positive emotions are experienced alongside negative ones. As time passes, the intense, sad emotions coming in waves are spread further apart. Typically, these waves of grief are bounded by emotions and feelings which relate to the internal and external reminders of the deceased. It is a state which is fluctuating, in which our mind and our behavior takes time to adjust. It is progressively made until the bereaved can hold the deceased in a comfortable place in his or her memory and a satisfying life can be resumed.

I did not accept this before but over a period of three years I have reached a point to write about  my feelings (yet again an abstraction) by recollecting it from my memories. This brings back the same state of mind I so endured to overcome in the past three years. 

I was in a state of dilemma if I had forgotten my father. But the drops of tears running through my eyes as I write this gave me the assurance I needed that above and beyond my love for him will remain forever until we meet again as father and daughter.

So long Padre ...