Can We Ever Get Over The Loss Of Someone We Love?

For me, the short answer is “no”.

Rebecca Stevens
ILLUMINATION-Curated

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Photo credit: My brother Boris and me in June 2016

December 6th seems to have come so much quicker this year. It’s the day that saddens me the most, I lost my brother at 9:48 pm on December 6th, 2016. Six months earlier he was vigorously planning his future — an ecolodge in our country Sierra Leone, a judo club and even sending computers to the local university Fourah Bay College. He was full of life and then suddenly, in the space of a few weeks, he was gone. It was traumatic, painful, and still is.

During the months I grieved for my brother, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances would tell me that with time, I would get over his loss. They said they’d been there, that at first, it stings horribly, that at first one doesn’t even know how they’ll make it through the day without their loved one, that at first, the pain was unbearable, but with time, that too would pass. I believed them.

As I started my grieving journey, I watched the calendar closely and wondered why 6 months after Boris’ death, I was still feeling the same amount of pain and missing every part of him terribly. One year in it was the same thing as well as two, three, four, and now seven years later. I would even add that today, I feel pain and despair. I struggle to understand why he was taken from us so early. I watch his children grow…

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Rebecca Stevens
ILLUMINATION-Curated

I write about racism, but there are so many other things I would like to write about instead. Help me dismantle racism so that I can get to that.