How Do You Measure Grief?

Twenty-one years ago, Ngọc Thị Nguyễn held her first grandchild. This baby was chubby and often mistaken for a boy. When she was three, she and her parents left Vietnam and moved to the United States. She was too young to have any proper memories of her grandmother and only knew her from photographs.

When she was nine, she and her parents visited Vietnam. Her grandmother was happy to see them again and welcomed them with smiles and laughs and stories.

When she was seventeen, she flew to her home country once more. Her grandmother seemed different to her. She didn’t smile as much. She liked to sit down all the time. The only stories she told made no sense to anyone but her. Her granddaughter sat with her and listened anyway. She liked watching her speak. She was thinner too, but her granddaughter didn’t notice or didn’t want to notice.

Ngọc Thị cried the day her granddaughter and her family’s trip was over and they had to fly back to the United States.

So, how do you measure grief?

Is it the amount of tears you cried in fluid ounces? Or is it the time spent shedding those tears? Is it the number of Kleenex tissues consumed? The volume of your wails in decibels? The rate of gasping hiccups per minute? How about the severity of your body rocking as you cry?

Perhaps grief is measured by guilt. Perhaps it’s the number of sentences you can think of that start with “I should have” or “Why didn’t I” multiplied by the number of excuses you made over the years. Or perhaps it’s the number of times you can say “I’m sorry” to the power of how little difference it makes at this point.

In the four years since her granddaughter has seen her, Ngọc Thị is even thinner, and his time, she can’t ignore the sunken cheekbones and pencil-thin legs in the photos her father texted to her. She has not been eating. She has not moved from her bed. Her speech is limited to a phrase every few hours. After eighty-five years, she is giving up.

If grief is quantifiable, it’s the amount of money for a plane ticket to go halfway around the world right in the middle of the busiest travel season of the year. It’s the number of times you’ve stopped and stared at old photos on your wall. It’s the force at which you bite your lip to keep your composure in front of your younger sibling. It’s the weight of your chest when you realize that the last time you saw her in person, she was crying because you were leaving. It’s the hours you’ve spent awake, writing, because it’s the only way you know how to deal with anything.

Grief is knowing that although your grandmother held you at the start of your life, you won’t be there to hold her at the end of hers.