Does it ever stop hurting?
I keep realizing I’m unwillingly getting better at handling the whole process of having to lose people, after the endless times I’ve had to watch them leave my life. Whether it’s over arguments, distance, or just the way life works when we choose our separate paths; it just never stops happening. Sometimes I’m the reason for it, sometimes I’m forced into it, yet, regardless of the why, it starts hurting less with every new loss.
Except for one: Death.
The only separation I’ve never been able to make (even slight) peace with. The death of loved ones. I haven’t really experienced something similar myself, but I’ve watched people who did and I could literally feel my heart burning over it every single time.
Whenever someone loses their sister, I start imagining a scene where I’m told that my own sister passed away too, and it hurts so bad that I find the tears uncontrollably flowing, as if that scene was for real. Whenever someone’s father moves to the hospital and his family has to wait for the dreaded news, I imagine the possibility of my father going through something similar and I can only see myself then locked inside my room, under my cover, refusing to see people or utter a word ever again. Every time someone loses a close friend, I surprisingly find myself pushing any new friendships away without even noticing it – just because I can’t handle the thought of literally (and unexpectedly) being forced to say goodbye one day. Things like that always get to me, and I realize I no longer have control over the scenarios my mind keeps choosing to come up with.
Death hurts. It hurts in a way that cannot possibly be described in words. Not knowing that your last meeting with someone was actually your last, and wondering what would’ve gone differently if only you knew. Not having a special someone around anymore to celebrate your news, or cry over your invisible wounds, every time you want to share something that only they would get. Missing them from a distance, yet not having to fight your ego anymore, because they no longer exist anyway. They don’t have an active Facebook profile to make you feel slightly better as you check their updates and feel like you’re still connected, in some way. They don’t have any recent pictures you could stare at for a while; just some distant memories at the back of your head that you try so hard not to lose sight of. They just no longer exist in the world and your mind will sometimes not want to grasp that fact.
With every time I know about someone losing a loved one, my mind still goes blank. I never know what to say. Sorry for your loss, I know you might not be able to sleep well through the night anymore? Does the hole that continues to grow inside your heart still hurt as we speak? Can I do anything for you that would stop your tear ducts from drying up every time you’re alone? And the worst part about it is when it turns into the elephant in the room.
I think about my own death a lot; I hardly ever feel like I belong to this world. I don’t really prepare that much for my departure either, but I just always happen to find myself longing to not be here. Despite that, I feel my heart hurting more with every new death story I get to hear about. So I talk about death, but I haven’t really felt any of it beyond my scenarios. I talk about death and wonder how those who’ve experienced it continue to survive through life and function as normal human beings – at least around strangers while it completely messes me up this way. I talk about the pain in my heart and I don’t even know anything about the inextinguishable fire inside theirs that silently keeps eating up their insides everyday. I don’t know how they handle it, and a lot of times I actually think the reason I’ve never gone through anything this painful is because He knows it will probably be the end of me.
