Losing a loved one should be the most traumatic of all bad experiences. For a moment you totally lose it. It is as if life is being slowly but surely snuffed out of you. You feel numbness all over your body. You want to scream but no sound is released except for the tears that stream uncontrollably down your cheeks. You close your eyes and tell yourself, ‘this was only a nightmare child, wake up!’ You have plenty of questions that obviously have no answers.

The million dollar question is why? Why now? Why today of all days? Is there something I could have done to prevent it? Deep down you know that is one thing you have no control over. Of course you wish you did. Then you would let the people you love live until they beg of you to let them go. You want to ask the author of life why but you know he is the omniscient one.

Plenty of encouraging messages flooding your phone, for a moment, drench you all the more, sucking what is left of your energy. For with every new message, a fresh stream of tears is released. You are grateful that people care but at this point it is difficult to make sense of their heartfelt words meant to make you feel better. At this point, it appears like nothing will ever be better. The fact of the matter is there will be better days but nothing will ever be the same.

You inform your friends and in empathy they say MHRIP. You wonder why you even bothered because you feel that soul has no business resting in the first place. It belongs here with you, where you can relate with it and do life together. Some of your friends give you the worst words of comfort that will add to your mixed bag of emotions and augment the pain. They mean well. Out of courtesy you play along and express gratitude. For your sanity, you sieve what you would want to stick.

At the funeral, your friends and relatives make promises; but the sooner they walk out of the gate, the sooner they forget. They promise to fill the gap, which you know clearly can never be filled. They disappear into their caves; where they were always before the tragic loss.

It is left of you to chart your way forward and go on a lifelong quest to heal. You are alive, you have a future but it will never be the same.