Tejal’s Story
Losing my mum changed me, I’m not the person I was and I will never be that version of me again. Losing her felt like my entire world was thrown off its axis. I didn’t realise how much she used to straighten me during a storm, or centre me when I felt lost. A few days with her, just pottering around and spending time with her reset me in ways I never really understood until she was gone. Grief is all consuming, it comes in waves, some days you laugh at a funny memory and then on others you sob at a different one. I kept thinking about how I would never hear her voice or laugh again, smell her scent, hold her hand, give her a hug, paint her nails and just be with her. And if I had known the last time I did all those things was the last time I would do them, I would soak in every drop of being around her one…last….time.
For just over 3 years after she passed, I existed. I went through the motions of waking up, brushing, showering, working, but my days became a checklist and I just got through the day by ticking off the to do list. 6 months after my brother and his wife had their little girl, it tripped a switch in my head and my heart. I thought about how mum would feel if she could see what I was doing to myself, and I looked at myself through the eyes of my niece and realised I didn’t want to be that person anymore. I miss my mum every single day but she wouldn’t want me to just exist, she would want me to live, and she would want me to be happy.
People don’t know how to talk about someone dying, or what to say to a person who is grieving. The truth is, there is not a lot you can say but there are a lot of cliches that a grieving person DOES NOT want to hear; “It was their time to go” “We are all going to die one day” “They are in a better place now”. If these are the only things that come to mind when faced with a grieving person, “I’m sorry for your loss” is enough because it is just that. It’s a loss of a life that meant the world, it’s a loss of all the things I didn’t get to do with mum, a loss of the experiences I would go through and not be able to share with her, the lost calls, meals, messages, birthdays, celebrations and everything in between.
Before she became our mum, she was a daughter, a sister, a friend and while I hate to admit it, I took her presence for granted. I only saw my mum, I didn’t see the other hats she wore for the other relationships she had. I think about what I would say to her if I could go back in time. I would take a million photos, I would record her talking to me about anything, I would ask her about her life before she got married and what her favourite memory is. I cherish the time I got to spend with her before and after I got married.
If I had to sum up in one word what grief has taught me, I would say it’s strength. To wake up every day and live life like a part of you hasn’t gone with them. To go to work and carry on like any other day, to be in social situations when it’s the last place you want to be. Waking up and trying to live a life you used to live but without someone who anchored you through every up and down requires strength. You don’t realise how strong you are until it’s the only choice you have.
By Tejal M.
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