Nobody Taught Me How To Grieve

Story by Areeba Kaukab Photo by Michael Quintero Design by Michael Quintero

I recently received some of my uncle’s belongings so my family can try and make up for the fact that I was not there when he died from cancer. I sit and look at his glasses, the ones that rested on his face the day he died, trying to catch a glimpse at what he saw and knew. I wasn’t able to see him and I wasn’t able to hug him one last time. But I sit here holding his glasses, grasping on to the only thing of his I have left.

My uncle dying was the biggest shock of not only this year but my life. So I’m not even sure if I’m reacting normally? Does grief just stick around? Like a stray dog? Do I feed it? Do I walk it? What do I do with it?

It just follows me around everywhere I go wanting every ounce of attention I’m willing to give it.

I wake up feeling like I can’t breathe, there are moments of inexplicable dread that envelope my heart. Then regardless of how I feel, I must tread on, go to work, finish my assignments, and fake a smile for my closest confidants. No one prepared me for how ongoing life will be regardless of what events have occurred. I still have to wake up and smile like everything’s okay.

There has been so much grief to deal with this year, with people dying of sickness and people being killed from racial inequalities. All of this combined made me realize that learning how to cope with grief and death should be taught to us in abundance. I don’t mean to be dramatic, but I feel like this year pulled a rug out from under me, and under that rug was a black hole with no means to an end.

How do I make sure I am giving myself room to grieve? Everyone says things like “take time and come back to normal life when you’re ready.” But, will I ever be ready? What even is “normal” life anymore? How do you expect me to take time when life is clearly fleeting by and ending right before my eyes? I understand the negativity is oozing in this piece and I apologize, but my truth is, grief is confusing.

I grieve every day, as of recently it’s been for my uncle. Before that, it was for the people dying at the hands of police brutality and COVID-19. How does anyone cope with grief when it is not in small doses. When it is in fact in large vats of oozing, bubbly, and gooey fragments of sadness and reality.

My uncle brightened my life in ways I didn’t realize until he died and I will have to live with those dim pieces for a while. I don’t feel like ending this piece with an uplifting ending because I’m not there yet.

Though, I will leave with one piece of advice I have learned is to honor who you or what you’re grieving for. Honor that grief by being actionable, and putting your mind into healthy and sustainable spaces.

For me, I started educating myself more to better combat racist ideologies and to be a better ally. I also started putting a harder focus on school because nothing made my uncle smile like education did. He was so proud that I was graduating this May and all I wanted to do was sleep for the rest of my school year.

Though the blueprint of the way his eyes crinkled every time he smiled when I talked about my ambitions is stamped into my brain, my grief turned into small facets of life and communication; goals to be completed rather than be avoided.

These actionable things can be anything and personal because that’s what grief is. I don’t know when I’ll personally be able to overcome my grief but I might come to the realization that I might not even want to.