Mom told me that she sat and cried through your most favorite movie, the old war movie that they always show on this day - the victory day - and the day when you left...
It’s that day, of all days…
They say that time heals, but for me it’s merely a distraction. Time has simply driven me away, further than I ever thought I’d be; further than even you could have imagined. I’m separated from the event not merely by an interval of thirteen years, but everything else that happened during this time, everything that you never got to see and everything that you missed.
Sometimes, in my dreams, it still feels that you’re here, somewhere, and sometimes you come back knocking on the door, as if you never left… At times I can see you standing in front of me, silent, but smiling… If only I could see you once again, if only I could ask you that one question that will always be on my mind, wherever I go, whatever I do – whether you approve of what’s become of me…
At times i wonder how different things would be if you were alive...
There really is no way of reconciling with it. It gets harder, instead of getting better. Blind acceptance only numbs the pain. Time is but a distraction. Grieving only brings temporary relief… There’s always the pain, the question, the knowledge that it could have not happened…
2 comments:
Oh, God, grief. Grief is intractable. It cuts so, so deep. And maybe we never so much get *over* as we do--somehow, in some way--get *through*. I don't know.
I was explaining one of my tattoos to someone the other day. It's a quote from Marguerite Duras's "Hiroshima Mon Amour" that reads, "I see my life. Your death. My life that goes on. Your death that goes on." I got it several years ago to memorialize my own mourning; it remains one of my most meaningful pieces.
When asked why I would get such a sentiment permanently inked on my body, I tried to explain that I feel like who we are, what we do, what sort of life we live now, is as much affected by who is not with us as who is, what we haven't or can't do as what we have or what we can, what sort of life we thought was to be as what sort of life turns out to be so. Our present and future realities are functions of absence and loss as much as of presence and gain.
It's a quiet, small truth that I hold to. I hold it quietly in part because, most people think it morbid or pessimistic. But, oddly, it comforts me. Or maybe it just feels very, very true.
Thank you very much for this most insightful comment.
what we do, what sort of life we live now, is as much affected by who is not with us as who is, what we haven't or can't do as what we have or what we can, what sort of life we thought was to be as what sort of life turns out to be so.
this is so very true, and thank you for showing this to me, because i can certainly see how this can be comforting... if i may please quote it and memorize it and maybe repeat it over and over gain like a mantra, like the "jesus prayer" until it becomes so much part of me that it continues without me speaking it.
thank you so much once again.
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