Today, I’ve decided to write about my relationship with the concept of death and how it seems to have changed as I’ve aged.

When I was a few months short of 10 years, I woke up one morning (before the sun) abruptly, to a dream I’d had of my grandfather (on my father’s side). It was a very basic, nothing extravagant dream of the two of us sitting outside the house, on the cold floor of the porch chatting away. We’d always had conversations, but this conversation felt mildly different to our usual ones. He looked younger, healthier (the shape of his face was different to the long oval shape that it usually was) than he had been the last time I’d met him. I couldn’t help but notice that difference and being as young as I was, I couldn’t point out that significance or why it mattered to me.

When I opened my eyes from the dream, I instantly felt from the silence that enveloped me at the moment, that something in the world had changed with regards to him. It was just a strong, weird sensation of knowing, one that I did not recognise at the time for I had never felt it before.

I kept trying to recollect the content of our conversation from the dream as I looked around and realized that I was alone in the room. I got out of bed and made my way slowly to the living room where the rest of the family were silently gathered around the telephone. I could sense what the last call we’d received on that phone might have been about. I was barely 10 years old at the time and yet I was able to guess (or know) before anyone had said a word, what may have happened through this sense of calm that comforted me. I couldn’t explain it then and I can’t explain it now, but I strongly believed, and stood by it for years that my grandfather had come to say goodbye to me in a dream, and that he stayed by me and the family while we grieved our loss of him.

As I grew older, this memory got a little fuzzy and I eventually stopped talking about it because of how silly it sounded. Till something similar happened when my grandmother passed a few years ago and a year later, when my aunt did too. And experiencing that again brought back the memories from all those years ago.

The difference between these experiences was that now I was older. My relationships with my grandma & my aunt had evolved. We shared quite a complicated dynamic before their time on earth had ended, compared to what the 10-year-old me would have shared with them.

I couldn’t travel down for the final rites of either due to certain situational circumstances. And we had not made our peace before I’d said my last goodbyes. I’d left them angry and hurting and I doubt either of them understood why I felt that way or if that affected how they loved me, nevertheless. I know that now, but I didn’t then.

Over the years, my concept of death or my feelings around it have shifted. The fear that shrouded the word started to in a way dissipate.

A few years ago, I heard and started learning about life after death. Not the kind I was taught about before. Not of fire and brimstone. But of beauty and love and hope, of renewed chances, and of fulfilling reunions. I learned about being able to see the truth again, without the veil, to be able to feel the peace that we all desperately seek whilst still in this life.

I’ve continued to read and learn more about this and the various other beliefs that surround the idea of death and what it may hold for us, once this life ends; maybe as consolation, maybe to calm my anxiety around the topic, maybe as time goes on and I edge closer toward a relationship with the topic considering that time is moving forward for everyone around me, everyone that I love too and I would much rather be prepared, than not.

I have come to terms with the fact that the heaviest burden to carry after losing a loved one, is the weight of “if”. Most of us don’t foresee this weight until it falls on us and it hits us then that it is a weight that we can’t lay down. We realize then that that time has far gone to be able to lay it down, and that this is how the rest of our lives are going to be – walking a little heavier, gravity pulling us down, making it hard to keep one foot in front of the other.

This feeling though, does not have to define our journey of grief. We can carry the weight of that cross, we can gain muscle from it, and we can remember and embrace that pain. We can choose to remember that if we could feel that much pain, the pain had its reason to be. After all, without love, there is no pain. And being able to love, is always a blessing.

I’ve come to understand that even the toughest most ridiculous life holds beauty in some form, if we put an effort to look for it. We all have our paths that we have chosen. And when a loved one goes ahead of us, we sometimes envy them and we definitely miss them, till we can meet them again. We miss the love that we shared, the memories that we hold on to, the pain that this separation brings which will hold us back for a while and then push us forward. We have to force ourselves to live to the best of our abilities, so that one day when we are together again, we will have more stories to share.

I know and believe today that I haven’t lost my chance for reconciliation. I know that I will one day be able to meet my grandma and my aunt, and we will all be in a better place to understand our differences and our similarities and how silly our conflicts were in this limited earthly vessel that we temporarily had resided in. I know that I will be able to meet my grandpa and continue our conversations. I’d like to continue to believe that death isn’t the end all to life, that it is just a passage to the next.

And I would like to dedicate this post to someone whose life I want to celebrate for doing the best that she could with the hand that was dealt her. She found joy where there was none to find. She laughed when she couldn’t bear to cry. She held on for love, for the love that she had for her sons. Today, we celebrate 40 days into her earning her wings. We will carry the weight of the “if” for her and the memories of her love and her life. We will always & forever love her and miss her for who she was and for who she will always be in our hearts ❤

We will always love you mama!