
2 minute read
How to Deal with Loss
from November 2021
by Stefania Pica
I never understood death. Never got the pain of loss — someone is there and then they're not —, nor that one day, anyone we love might stop breathing in our superficial, basic, human form. But it's not the bodies we miss. It's the sound of their voice, their call. It’s the way they made us feel, their random gestures of joy that just reminds us of them, maybe a swear or a song they would always mumble. It's the part of themselves they left with you by just being.
Advertisement
I never suffered because of death. Luck, indeed; no one especially close to me died. When someone I never met — a distant relative or a family friend — died, I knew I was supposed to feel sad, to mourn or suffer. But I couldn't. To me, their death meant nothing, and I couldn’t pretend to feel sorrow. I had the idea that I might be a bad person, a sociopath, because everyone felt it. They were all sad.
"Whatever path you have been together on, at some point you will go alone hanging on to the little bits of life they left in you"
Nowadays, I believe it was the display: what is a name without the nuance of the person's smile attached? What is a profession without the constant echoing of their job complaints? What is their hometown without the memories you have together there? What is living without them?
Tell me your memories together, like the person they liked in high school who friend-zoned them or their way of pro nouncing "r" as if it burned their throat. How they collected leaves on their way home; the passion in their voice when they described their favourite song and the drunk dance moves that would remind you to take an Uber home.
Did you forget about those?
That's them. It is not their age, partners, birthplace or eye color. Each connection is intrinsic. We give and we receive part of us in the exchange of bonding. Each day may be grey until the light of their presence comes your way. The jokes, the laughs and the fights. Whatev er path you have been together on, at some point you will go alone hanging on to the little bits of life they left in you, forever missing the ones you gave them.
"We give and we receive part of us in the exchange of bonding" stantly irritated by the sheer foolishness of the plotlines. In the span of the summer, the main character would fall in love, get married, die and come back to life. Yet, there was really nothing that could stop me from finding myself situated between thakuma and her glasses at exactly 7 pm. It was in this infliction of time, I felt like I knew thakuma. I knew that she’d gotten tired of watching these soap operas but she wouldn’t stop watching them because she knew I would sit right next to her. I think it was the days when my head would hit her lap that she would make sense of the plot of that forsaken show. However, I severely doubt that because a protagonist can only die so many times until they reincarnate into their very own evil twin.
And I think that's death. The absence of absence.