Writer: Ioanna Balafa
We all are or have been faced with the loss. One, two or more times. Maybe you think it
will not happen to you until it does. The irony is that you often think about
life, how short it may be, if you’ll have the time to do everything you want. To
become the only repressed person on earth! Then come the questions about the
one who’s gone. Did he have the chance to do what he really wanted in his life?
Did he love and be loved enough? What he was thinking when he knew that the end
is near? How did he endure the physical pain of illness? And when you think all
of these then your mind and body hurt.
You might cry for a moment, you might cry for days, you might not cry at
all. And having overcome the first shock then comes bereavement. In private, without
many words, but also comes that unbearable feeling that if I won’t share my
thoughts I’ll explode! Feelings of numbness frizzing, denial, anger,
negotiation, acceptance, adaptation, remembrance.
Even though you think that your time with someone is enough, that you’ve
talked about everything, it’s not true. To be honest, the death of our loved
ones is a wound which might take you to zero or to retake the worldview from
the start, but it can also make you stay "trapped" in your feelings
for a while. What remains are the change of seasons, lyrics, music and photos
to remind you of moments and of scents. But a few guilties are remained too,
because three hundred and something written words might not be enough to
express all of your thoughts.
I have no idea what happens after death, but I greet my “seamanlike”uncle who
teached us how to swim, sing and paint, with the promise not to forget him though
he didn’t manage to grow old as much as he wanted by making his hut near the
sea with all of us as his exceptional guests, us who loved him and still do. These
are words written with caution for anyone who has experienced or is
experiencing the loss by dealing with it in his own way and his own thoughts
when he falls to sleep. Words in no purpose to destroy anyone’s good mood, but
in purpose to always “remember not to forget” those who are gone by recreating positive
feelings, without forget to live, to fall in love and to respect.
(published on www.ikariamag.gr)
