The Nonsensical Journal

They say that grief is the price we pay for love, but they fail to mention that it’s a price we pay for something we never chose. We don’t choose love; it just happens. So grief isn’t a price, it’s the consequence of a gift you never asked for — a hidden cost buried deep in the tiny, italicized lettering at the bottom.

I experienced my first moment of grief when I lost my mother. My first memory of my mom leaving me behind was my first day of school; I remember it clearly, seared into memory. I was frantically grabbing at her skirt, tears streaming down my face, not wanting her to leave me behind. I didn’t know it then, but it was the same feeling again when she drew her final breath.

The second time I would experience it was a couple of months later when my father passed away. It was a strange moment of confused grief. I never had a healthy relationship with him, and I didn’t know how to feel. Grieving my father was a process that took a couple of years, as I unpacked his items and moments and realized that he was just human, and very likely had been battling depression his entire life.

My parents passing away was akin to watching my childhood die. As a child with anxiety, I had always feared my parents leaving me and, as much as it hurt standing by their deathbeds, it felt like this was the moment I had been preparing myself for since I was five. That anxious fear had finally manifested. To my siblings and others I seemed strong, but in reality I had been living with these thoughts of anxiety my entire life.

But grief doesn’t leave. It lingers and reappears.

The moment that broke me — the moment that blindsided me — was losing my closest and best friend. That was not something that my anxiety ever anticipated, and how could it? My partner in crime. My childhood friend. The only person who knew me for who I really was. We had plans. We would grow old, gaming all day, telling everyone to fuck off.

By all means, we should’ve died a few times growing up with all the stupid shit we were doing, and to lose him to cancer was just… not the way it was supposed to be. I remember our last conversation. It was over the phone. All he could say was “hey man” with all the energy he could muster, and all I could say back was, “this is it?” What followed were five of the longest minutes of silence.

I wasn’t holding onto the phone. I was holding onto my friend. My brother. I was holding on for one last time, and those moments of silence were drowned in a flood of memories that refused to stop replaying over and over and over again.

But grief doesn’t leave. It lingers and reappears.

My latest moment of grief was the loss of my pet cat. That hurt more than I ever thought it would — and how could it not? Was she there when my mom passed away? Yes. Was she there when my father followed suit? Yes. Was she there when my best friend took the other road home? Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

She was there in every silent moment of grief, in every loud scream of laughter. She was there in every broken moment and every step taken toward recovery. She was there when no one else was.

She didn’t do much. She just sat there — and sometimes that’s all we need: someone to sit patiently next to you until you can become you again.

This is a letter to grief. Grief that is not a price, grief that is a consequence of having all these moments stolen from you. Grief that I never agreed to, born from love that I never asked for. Yet, it’s okay. Every moment is a stolen moment, whether it was loved or unloved, warranted or not, needed or wasted. Every moment gifted to you is another stolen moment.