Living Alongside Your Loss

Two years after his wife died, Hari laughed out loud at his granddaughter’s joke over dinner. A moment later, he went quiet and left the table. Later that night he told his son, “For a moment I forgot her. What kind of husband forgets?”

Hari’s fear

Hari’s son sat with him on the veranda. Hari explained that he was afraid. If he could laugh, did that mean he was forgetting his wife? Would feeling better mean losing her all over again?

Many grieving people share this fear. They feel that their grief is the last thing that connects them to the person who died. So they hold on to the pain, because letting it soften feels like letting the person go.

Life grows around grief

Hari’s son remembered a picture he had once read about, from the counsellor Lois Tonkin. He drew a circle on a piece of paper and coloured it in. “This is your grief,” he said. Then he drew a bigger circle around it. “This is your life. The grief does not get smaller. Your life slowly grows bigger around it.”

In the early days, grief fills almost all of life. Over time, new things grow around it, such as grandchildren, friends, work and small pleasures. The grief stays the same size, but it no longer fills everything. Hari’s laugh did not mean that his grief had shrunk. It meant that his life had grown a little bigger.

Both things can be true

People often expect something good to cancel out the sadness, but it does not work like that. Two feelings can sit side by side. Hari could miss his wife and enjoy his granddaughter’s joke in the very same moment. One feeling did not cancel the other.

When joy comes back, it may bring a sharp feeling of guilt. That guilt is a sign of love. Happiness does not take anything away from the person who died.

Being kind to a hard feeling

Some evenings, Hari felt deeply lonely, and his first thoughts were harsh. He told himself, “I should be over this by now. I will be alone for the rest of my life.” These thoughts made the loneliness much worse.

His son suggested a gentler way of speaking to himself. Instead of fighting the feeling, Hari could simply notice it and be kind to it, in the way he would be kind to a friend.

The loneliness did not disappear. But Hari stopped fighting himself, and the evenings became a little easier to bear.

Keeping her close

Hari was also afraid of forgetting the details of his wife. So he and his granddaughter made a memory box together. They put in her reading glasses, a recipe in her handwriting and a tape of her singing. They wrote her favourite sayings on small cards. Now, whenever Hari misses her, he opens the box.

Hari also noticed that what mattered to his wife still mattered to him. She had always fed anyone who came to the door. So every Sunday, Hari cooks extra rice and shares it with the watchman and his family. In this way, what she cared about lives on through him.

When the future feels too long to face, it helps to think only about today. Ask yourself what feels a little meaningful today. Tomorrow, you can ask the question again.

How it went for Hari

Hari still misses his wife every day, and he still cries sometimes. But he laughs more often now, and he no longer feels guilty about it. He has learnt that he does not have to let go of her in order to keep living. He carries her with him.