Grieving in Secret
The unspoken pain that hides beneath the surface
We live in a world full of gaps and holes left wide open by loved ones long gone. Yet we, the survivors walk through it day by day undetected.
I have at times felt that wearing pain like clothes on a body, or a cast on a broken arm, or even a sign hanging around the neck; might save me from hiding underneath this façade. I wouldn’t have my grief screaming beneath my surface, while I smile and get on with everyday life. Instead, people would take one look at me and read the pain that resides within me.
In reality, my life is filled with blinking away memories that dared to attack me mid-sentence, and then smiling, nonchalantly carrying on with a conversation. I hide the fact that certain scenes in a movie brought tears to my eyes, not because they were particularly beautiful, but because they showed two sisters, happy and secure. Something I used to have but no longer do.
I wish people could see the pain behind my smile, note the omissions I make in stories of my past, know that instead of telling them what is really on my mind, I lie and tell them what I think they would find pleasing to hear.
I wish people knew that when I bring my deceased sister up, I do it from a place of strength and courage. I do it despite my fear that they won’t understand it, that they won’t validate it, and despite my fear that I will become a wounded individual that no one knows what to do with.
I hate how I feel when I bring her up, I hate how I feel when I don’t. One side feels uninvited and inappropriate, but the other feels like a lie, denial.
I hate that despite most of my thoughts lingering around her loss, it cannot translate into everyday life and conversations. So how then do I speak about love when love is what I felt for her? How do I talk about life when my life is not the life I knew? How do I talk about dreams without revealing that she is always in them?
I’ve become that person that says they are the oldest sibling when actually, they are the oldest alive. I have become a person who laughs even though I could cry. I withhold information, because it is so much easier to say “I slept well” than to explain why I was up for hours thinking about why people die. I have all these wounds that live and hide within my body; undetected by the human eye.
This is my life now, yet no one really knows. All they see is the happy, smiling girl. Yet all I am is half the person I used to be.
