Welcome To The Club

I didn’t want to write, but grief keeps coming at me from different sides; people I knew and people I didn’t know directly; the ones I met once or twice but met, nonetheless. I don’t hate grief, but I wish it would give me a break.

When my Vashti’s father died, we sat in a circle and joked about it; each of us had lost a parent, well except for one person who still had both. A few years later, her dad died, and we stood and watched how Boy’s Brigade marched with his casket on their shoulders. January this year, I stood and watched another set of men and women, young girls and young boys, in white shirts and white gowns, navy blue trousers and a band-belt that sat crossed on their shoulders down to their waist, a navy-blue cap, but somehow, I didn’t notice their shoes. I wanted to see, not for my friend but for me, because I hated funerals. Another friend had lost a parent, and I was there. Few days after, someone else died, Israel from school and I tried so hard to forget his face. Grief.

I hate this cycle of losing a parent, a mum, a dad, a parent. I hate that I can’t be there for my friend that just “joined the club”. I hate that in two months, two friends have joined the club. I hate death, that it is a part of us, and we can try to run away, but we can never outrun it. I hate that I am writing about grief again because this is the only way I can release, because no one else would understand, because why do I grieve for a man I barely know. But this is my life, and maybe I understand how my friend feels now, maybe I want to hold her or just stare at her; no matter the words I utter, that ache would never go away but I know, and I want her to know that I do. This is not heartbreak, you won’t heal and find love again, this is grief, and it is never going away. I might shed a tear or two, not for the man but for my friend who just lost a parent.