Losing you is the worst pain I have ever felt.

From a very young age, people always teach us about how relationships are very important and how to build them, and how to maintain them but no one ever tells us how to face the trauma that follows after we lose them forever. When someone that has been an integral part of your life leaves the world nothing feels the same anymore. You begin to perceive the world differently. I lost my grandfather last month and I have been having a hard time dealing with it. I never reached out for help because I thought no one would be able to understand my misery but recently I realized this type of pain is new only for me not for the world. It may be my first experience with death but not the world's and most of us have gone through it and so I thought the healing process should be the same or somewhat similar for all of us. 

I reached out for help from one of my teachers and this is what he said "If you can do the things that you used to do with 100% potential now with at least 20% it's exceptional. At this time in your life, you will be broken which means you have two choices either to break yourself further or rebuild yourself entirely." When he said that the pain stays and never leaves I felt sad that there was nothing that could be done to ease my agony. It is all too depressing. Every day starts with crying and everything around me feels sad. I would give anything to just get back to my normal life again. 

I read a book written by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, in her book, On Death and Dying, she had outlined five stages of grief. Each stage is unique and is not necessarily experienced in order. Stages may also be revisited. These stages are:

Denial: This is the stage where I found it impossible to believe the loss of my grandfather is real. It was around 6.30 I went to wake him up as per usual only to notice that he had stopped breathing. I still sometimes tend to make myself believe that he just went for a walk or he is in the other house. Acceptance of the truth is the key to come out of this stage and from experience, I know that it is easier said than done.

Anger: As you begin to accept and acknowledge the truth it's normal to feel anger and rage and multiple emotions at the same time. This anger may be directed at yourself, the loved one for leaving you, doctors for not healing your loved one. Mine was directed towards God for taking him away from me. Unthinkable agony is all I felt and all I still feel at my random blackout sessions.

Bargaining: It's not unusual for survivors to cope with loss by trying to negotiate, usually with their higher power. Don't be surprised if you find yourself trying to make an “if only” deal with God. I'm not gonna speak much about this because I didn't actually go through this face and so I don't have a first-person opinion on this as I said in the beginning not everyone who grieves goes through all of these stages and that’s okay. Contrary to popular belief, you do not have to go through each stage to heal. Some people resolve their grief without going through any of these stages. And if you do go through these stages of grief, you probably won’t experience them in neat, sequential order, so don’t worry about what you “should” be feeling or which stage you’re supposed to be in.

Depression: The overwhelming sadness you feel is normal, and in most cases will not last forever. It's common to feel as if life will never be the same because it actually wouldn't be the same without the person who impacted your life so much. 

Acceptance: While this final stage of bereavement and grief is called “acceptance,” this refers to coming to terms with the finality of the loss and moving forward with your life. It does not mean that, from time to time, you may not revisit some of the stages listed above, but rather that the pain of your loss will become more manageable. I'm not anywhere close to this stage.

I think justification is the way to reach acceptance. Justifying the loss of the person. For me, it was that he didn't go to the hospital. He didn't suffer on prolonged medicines even on his last day he was roaming around in his scooter he passed away in his sleep peacefully and for that, I am grateful. 

 People often think if I had changed a few things would he/she lived longer. I felt guilty for not being able to save him from the inevitable despite him having the most peaceful death I couldn't come to terms with it and I blamed myself for letting him go as if I controlled how life and death work.  Please don't self-blame yourself. Their time for departure has come and they have to leave that's the ultimate truth. It's hard to accept but no one is going to stay forever. If all of us stayed forever then there would be no space on earth. 

Negativity and hopelessness are very common during this time. I had a lot of negative thoughts like if everyone is going to die then why bring more people into your life just to watch them leave. I even didn't pick up my father's call because I wanted to distance myself from him so that when he leaves I wouldn't have to go through this again but then I realized how stupid it was and how much I love him and snapped out of my stupidity because I realized that the risk of love is loss, and the price of loss is grief, but the pain of grief is only a shadow when compared with the pain of never risking love and so I don't regret loving my grandfather or father or anyone that I love.

Grief is just love that has no place to go. It's all the unspent love that gathers at the corners of your eyes and as the lump in your throat, and a hollow part of your chest. The five stages of grief were never meant to help tuck messy emotions into neat packages. They are responses to loss that many people have, but there is not a typical response to loss, as there is no typical loss. Our grieving is as individual as our lives. Instead of a series of stages, we might also think of the grieving process as a roller coaster, full of ups and downs, highs and lows. Like many roller coasters, the ride tends to be rougher in the beginning, the lows may be deeper and longer. The difficult periods should become less intense and shorter as time goes by, but it takes time to work through a loss, and sometimes you never do and you just learn to live life with holes in the place where they used to be filled my memories and love that you cherished. 

Hopefully, this helps you someway or helps you to help someone who is going through this disheartening experience with death. At the end of the day if you think about it's all just an experience some a little brutal and unexpected than the others. Before experiencing a loss as painful as this when people say someone died I used to say I'm sorry and become completely blank on what to do next but now since I have experienced this I don't know if I will be able to help them because I'm not even able to help myself but I do know that I would be able to at least understand them better.

P.S: I love you ayappa ♥️ . I will keep you, day and night here until the day I die. I'll be living one life for the two of us. I will be the best of me. Always keep you next to me, I'll be living one life for the two of us. Even when I'm on my own, I know I won't be alone. Tattooed on my heart are the words of your favourite song. I know you'll be looking down, Swear I'm gonna make you proud. I'll be living one life for the two of us [Louis Tomlinson - Two Of Us]