Grief.

For us, who are no strangers to loss.

I think Sundays are for reminiscing.

You get home from Sunday service and you decide to lay down before preparing lunch. Suddenly, you begin to reminisce and you think about loss. You toss and turn because it's too early to think about such but it's late. You can already feel the sadness creeping in — overwhelmingly, tears rolling down your cheeks and you begin to cry out loud.

It's not strange that you feel this way. You're not overreacting, even when her 10th year remembrance was last month, 15th September.

It's been 10 years and it still hurts, you still cry. You still wonder how your life would be, if she were here, with you. Maybe you wouldn't feel so lost, so alone and so unwanted. Truth is, you know you would never feel this way with her around.

She was the best person in your life. She loved you more than everybody else, cared for you better than anybody ever could. You were hers and she was yours. She was the light that illuminated your world.

But today, as the pain hits your nerves, tears gushing down your eyes and your heart breaking as it were, 10 years ago, you remember how it all happened.

You remember how she became sick, the long hours of sitting by her bedside in the hospital. Even then, she was so sick but so strong, you'd hold her hand and pray with her. You'd share stories and she'd listen. She always loved listening to you.

It was raining heavily on the day she passed, you'd joked in your head that, “this was the storm after the calm”. You didn't know how to feel, nor to react. Whether to cry, or laugh or scream, so you did neither and just watched. Everyone was bothered but also in pain to allow you to just be.

The first time you cried was after she was buried, it was because your baby sister asked about her but you didn't know what to tell her, you let the tears drop hoping she'd pick up on it. You'd later wish you had simply told her.

At that time, you were so angry at everyone. God, for taking someone so good. Yourself, for always causing her trouble. The Doctors, they couldn't save her. The world, for being cruel and snatching her life. And honestly, everyone else.

Your world did not only lose a soul, it lost its light too. You wanted to try everything to get rid of the pain that tightened your chest and shattered the walls of your life but nothing worked. You were numb.

Life seemed to have lost its colour, just as you have lost yours. Everything seemed pale. It scared you — death, loss, the recurrence of it all. 

Then again, you began to realise that her absence in your life will be forever, not on your birthdays, or your grad, or your wedding. Nothing, never. And it stung.

The consoling and comforting from people that were unrelenting— they meant well but was unhelpful and exhausting. “They could not understand,” you assured yourself.

You would then try comfort eating, it seemed to work for some time till other consequences began to surface. 

Your life will get into some schedule and it would work till her favourite show begins to play on tv and you'd remember that you only ever watched it because of her and you will fall apart, again.

You will say to yourself, “I hope you are fine, wherever you are, because I'm not”. You'd whisper it, hoping she would hear and respond.

You are fine but you're not. The world missed out on such a great person. Everyday, you miss her, you feel the void in your life but you live still.

They will say, time and tears take away grief.

But what they don't quite say is that, grief never really leaves. 

Grief, it's like a great hole in the ground, at the beginning, you forget it's there, so you keep falling in. After a while, it's still there but you learn to walk around it .

The 5 stages of grief are not linear. You have been through it all again and again but here you are, a more refined version.

Grief can be a burden but also an anchor. It has shaped you into a resilient, strong and brilliant lady. I'm proud of you.

As you lay on your bed now, Simidele heaven on earth playing and you think "she's probably in heaven". You remember her gentle smile and  you smile a little too.

the shock, the anger, the denial, depression,the acceptance and maybe now the healing, it has all brought you here, to a place of comfort and strength.

You're assured that she is in a better place, watching you, so you are never truly alone. You also know that you will get to see her again, you will tell her about your adventures and she will listen. She will hold your hand and tell you, she's proud.

It will get better, little one, the pain will ease a little.

Sometimes the highs are higher, and sometimes the lows are lower; Sometimes the cycle is shorter, and other times it's longer. At all times though, you are thriving, you are living and you are fighting.

That is all.

So do not fear, for I am with you; Do not be dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you and I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:10

Love, 

Victoria. 🤍