#4: On (trying to) tessellate grief's terrain
A newcomer-to-grief's humble attempt at introspecting on a road I'm still paving.
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.
Maya Angelou
I am a newcomer to grief - a statement that in itself is dually privileged and intimidating. Only two months into the journey of trying to decipher how grief should, could, can, and may feel, I’m trying to pave what my own relationship with it will one day be. If you are also navigating loss and/or preparing yourself for it, my hope is that some of you may consider this sharing as a primer of sorts.
Losing my grandfather about two months ago is one of the most complicated, difficult moments I’ve had to navigate. With each passing day, there is a growing amount of time between who he was in his last days and how I think of him now. Regardless, it is a moment and memory that adds weight to my days, often inducing cumulative nostalgic sadness at the most random of moments.
During the last three years of his life, Parkinson’s encroached on all of the cornerstones of my grandfather’s personality and life routine. Seeing the disease take over his body, his mind, his communication and frankly, his dignity was demoralising for my family. My father, an only child like me, painstakingly tried to find a panacea for the pain he saw my grandfather continually undergo. Despite living an ocean away, my dad travelled almost every two weeks to go see my grandfather, took him to every top specialist, tried every possible medicated cure, hired two caregivers, and even a physiotherapist.
There were moments when I felt confused and frustrated about why my father was trying so hard to help my grandfather win against a disease that inevitably just added fatigue and suffering. It felt like the doctor’s visits and medication were only making things worse - slowly eroding away the dynamism of his being, leaving lethargy in its place. Now I know that it was my father’s love language, a way to ink his love onto my grandfather during this chapter of his life journey. Something about scarcity (in our case, as only children and grandchildren) makes you cherish those in your life that much harder. We knew what would eventually come but floating him in a yacht of love felt the only way to ride the choppy waters. The hard truth is that it is not easy for any child (regardless of age) and especially only children like my dad and I to see their loved ones in pain. It is even harder for us to prepare for the inevitable so acting on the present feels easier than processing the future that will come.
I’ve spent the last two months reflecting on the quintessence of my grandfather before the occupation of Parkinson’s, as I refer to it. As a result, this piece is a meditation on grief as much as it is a thorough reflection on the man he was.
My grandfather was a simple man. He derived immense contentment and pride from simply living and loving. As his only grandchild, I was born directly into the lap of luxury - in this case, his seemingly boundless love. I don’t exaggerate when I say that to him, my birth was a symbol of his capacity to love. And to put it frankly, I don’t think I fully appreciated the respect and dedication he paid me during his many years on this planet.
I’ve spent my entire life moving around the world - across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and North America. While my grandfather did visit us in our many homes, he spent his entire life in one country and primarily in one city. Geography aside, my grandfather would stay up all night waiting for my visits, counting down the minutes and asking my grandmother (to her admiration and annoyance at times, I must admit) when I would arrive. I can still see his silhouette at the gate of my grandparents’ home, holding the chunky set of keys to the house, eagerly waiting to give me a hug and to ask me if I had eaten something on the plane ride over. And the beautiful part is that for the number of times I said I wasn’t hungry, he would still insist I eat something anyway - just for his sake. This was something I thought about quite intensely during one of my visits to see him in 2022. During this visit, he was having trouble eating full meals and stubbornly refused his nurse and my grandma’s many attempts to feed him. I volunteered to help feed him a few times during this visit and while he was no longer able to verbally communicate, he happily ate his meals as I fed him. We exchanged no words, only intense gazes, but I knew he knew what I was thinking - that for all the times he had fed me as a child, it was my turn to try and return the same favour for him.
While Parkinson’s changed our dynamic over the last few years, grief has put my memories of our relationship in great perspective. The best part of reflecting on who he was and who we were together is realising that we were equally obsessed with each other. As a child, he was my confidante, my playmate and my best friend. While decades apart, it was my grandfather who I would share stories of my travels with, my many “first days” at new schools, the latest book I was reading, and the list of all of my friends. My grandparents live in a simple two storey-house that my grandfather invested his entire life’s savings into. He designed very facet of that house and as I grew older, he constantly wanted me to feel at home there too. While I was barely there more than a few days at a time each year, I will never forget the memories I made there. I can still remember how I’d pester him into playing hide-and-seek with me during his afternoon nap time. I also remember him running up and down the staircase to dry our laundry on the terrace. The man could fold laundry in a way few can - a reflection of his diligence and dedication to a principled lifestyle. I remember how every morning without fail, he would also water the plethora of flowers and plants that surrounded their home. He would, of course, insist I join him on these visits, telling me about each flower and handing me ever so delicately the jasmine buds he adoringly took care of. The flowers in our house undoubtedly bloomed through all seasons, they felt his love just like I did. In fact, while I never said it to him in person, my love for him was so great that I used to sketch “I <3 you” on the many notebooks he kept his contacts in.
On a comical note, when I was around 5 or 6 years old, I hooked onto the idea of having a swing in my grandparents’ house primarily because there wasn’t much to do there (this was a pre-wifi era) and also because I couldn’t have a treehouse (sigh), so a swing felt like an easy compromise. Given the size and space, this was unequivocally an impractical idea - one that my parents found extravagant and unnecessary at best. But of course, my thatha wouldn’t relent. And what was initially a swing made of cloth turned into a specially commissioned wooden panel swing that he installed as the centre piece of our living room. We eventually took down this swing in the last couple of years to make more room for his new needs in old age. In a way, taking down the swing felt like the conclusion of my childhood era and the beginning of his new season of life. It is only now as I reflect on the man he was that I can fully appreciate that this swing was my grandfather’s way of conveying just how much he thought of me and to say, in his own cheeky way, that I could always get what I wanted with a little bit of creativity and a lot of heart.
Another element of grief that has struck me is how I’ll never get to call him in real life again. As Parkinson’s continued to occupy his body, our communications inevitably diminished. The energised conversations we once had turned to long bouts of silence. As I saw him suffer and as he slowly lost touch with his vocal faculties, I felt immense guilt for not sharing with him as I used to before. However, as I’ve begun to process the many conversations we used to have, I am also reminded of the many stories he held in his soul, the very same ones he loved to repeat and that I would make fun of him for telling over and over again. It sounds banal but I would do a lot to go back in time and record him sitting at our dinner table, eating lunch to his heart’s content, and recounting yet another tale of my 2-year old self insisting he take me out for a walk in the summer heat and buy some coconut water. My favourite part of the story now is that I think of him every time I drink coconut water (which is a lot) and chuckle thinking how clingy we both were, and what a saint he was for cultivating my diva-ness (lol) at such a young age.
When I was last in the house for his cremation, what made me most sad apart from the dearth of him in the house, was not being able to hear his voice call out my name. He used to call my grandmother by my name often. I remember finding that absurd growing up and would often make fun of him for it, insisting he use her name not mine. Now, I think how gorgeous it is that even when we were apart, my grandfather was insistent we stay connected. And while this sounds trippy, I would like to think that as he navigates to his afterlife, he’s calling out my name in another realm.
Grief has made me think so much about how I wish I could have been more present to observe him with others. It seemed every time I visited, the attention was entirely on me. Now, I would do a lot to simply visit, sit and take notes on how he loved everyone around him. During his cremation, my introvert self felt overwhelmed by the rituals and noise around me. There were so many relatives and family friends swarming around, crying silently, recounting their memories and wanting to talk to me. Truthfully, I can only remember a handful of their names and faces thanks to the amnesiac effect of grief. However, two months on, I can more fully appreciate the myriad of relationships he cultivated in his lifetime. Many of the people who visited to pay their last respects are those he had spent more time with than me, on account of living so far away. However, what stood out most was the fact that up until the last few years of Parkinson’s occupation, he had shown up for all of their weddings, births of their children and other important life occasions, thereby nurturing their lives with the same pure love I was lucky to be enveloped in. Many shared how he accepted everyone for who they were, avoiding drama and confrontation at all costs, and exuding a consistent sense of peaceful respect. It is through the lens of my grandfather that I am more intentionally looking at myself, wondering how best to exemplify the elegance of a man who embodied so much and wanted for nothing but to shower his love.
Grief is a fickle feel. In some moments, it feels insurmountably heavy to actually feel anything at all. In others, I smile knowing that it wouldn’t hurt so much if I didn’t care, and the level of care I have is so intangibly great. And sometimes, all I think about is how his passing has entered me into a club filled with other members who have also faced grief in their own ways. This is a club I knew I would eventually be a part of (while I wish not to be) but I never quite grasped that his passing would be my ticket in.
I could write for hours on how deeply sad I am to live a life without my grandfather in it, how some days I just sit for a few moments staring at the monochrome portrait of him on my study desk and think about what he would tell me. But I could write for even longer on how proud I am to have known someone so wonderful. He stood in the light his entire life, bringing a radiance to how he loved and making simplicity look ever so classy. Losing my grandfather in one way has made me gain his soul and spirit in other ways. I am better and will continue to be better because he existed in my life. For that, I am grateful. Rest in love, TVK.
Oh my gosh Mish. In a word, this is endless. I really need to process this essay because so much of it spoke directly to my soul and relationship with grief and my own grandfather. For now though, I'm sending you love as you move through the grief and remembering of your grandfather's life and transition. I hope you feel a balm of his love holding you through this.
I cried while reading this as I guessed I would from the first few lines. I have not experienced grief up close with someone from my immediate circle. I cherish this letter and will probably come back to it at a time that I will sadly need it most. Your memories are so plentiful and full and the way you've described the nature, habits, and even silent character of your grandfather speaks to how connected you were. Just like the E.E. Cummings quote that you shared, there is a safe and sweet obsession that lingers (I say still) between you both. Because of that, this reads as a tribute too.
Your grandfather reminds me of mine. He sounds like he embodies the description of grandfathers and humans with immeasurably kind hearts that many dream of. Since we both live similar nomadic lives as we seek a life of our choosing, I also get the pain of living far as my grandfather makes space for me, excitedly, as I return with stories, books, recipes, always reminding me that I have a home in his own, going lengths to ensure that I know that he is there. When someone loves so deeply and unconditionally it is because they are truly special, otherwordly and so I imagine the passing feels heavier, because they have shown us ocean-size love, and who would ever want to be without that. We're so blessed to have been gifted grandfathers like ours. Yours lives on in his legacy of love and memories, Mish. I truly appreciate you for sharing and I hope many will be able to find peace in this letter as I have.