Dear Grief,

Hello. You have become a more predictable friend now. I met you when I was suddenly introduced to loss. The sharp, sick taste of loss. Metallic, angry, harsh, incomprehensible and gut wrenchingly sad. There was no formal introduction. You just entered and settled down like a blanket. You enveloped me for a long time, so much so, that I didn’t realise you had become my second skin.

Then, one day, I recognised you clearly in my daily routine and my comfort food and my weight gain and I felt strangely relieved. At least now, I knew. From that point on, I’d observe how you would drop in from time to time, often when I least expected you. In the middle of a hearty laugh or a brilliant book or a formal dinner, you’d deliver a sucker punch in my solar plexus and I’d double up in pain. Gasping. Screaming silently. Reeling from the hit. And then you’d disappear again and I’d go back to life that would relentlessly urge me to hop on and get a move on.

So, I alternated for a while between grief and life. I learnt that as you grow older the losses pile up and the wheel turns again. And again.

Now you come and go, as and when you please. I learn to ride your crests and troughs. I learn to embrace life and treasure the love I have.

Still warily,
Your host.