When I was about twelve years old, my maternal grandmother passed away. I still vividly remember the day it happened. Even though no one had told me what was happening, I could sense the tension at home. When I was preparing to go to school for the day, I overheard my family members talking about taking her to the hospital.

Throughout the day, I felt very tense and uncomfortable. When I came back, the house was suddenly very crowded. I felt that something was off. Why were there people around? But as an aunt came by, she said, “We are going to pray because grandmother is not there anymore.” At the time, I couldn’t comprehend that she had died. I just thought that she had gone to the hospital.

Since my parents were away from home due to work, no one told me the actual scenario. Only when I saw a few relatives crying, then the reality dawned on me: grandmother was no more in the world. She had passed away.

Even more tragic was that my mother was not there for her own mother’s last breath. She came after a few days, and I could hear her crying from the moment she entered the house. Her cries of Aama! gives me shivers and brings tears to my eyes to this day. But at that time, something strange was happening to me. I just couldn’t face my mom. It felt uncomfortable. I was hesitant to approach her. I thought it was shameful for me to see her like this. I thought it better to stay away.

We talked the next day after my mom reached out to me herself. But working in the mental health field now, I reflect on the incident and see how I misunderstood the feeling of grief at the time. One part of me knows that a child would find it very hard to face that reality. But I was told nothing about the situation then. No one even told me my grandmother had passed away, so I internalised it, thinking that it was something to be hidden.

Grief is a feeling associated with loss, usually accompanied by profound sadness, frustration and anger. But because it is accompanied by loss, I have found people sugarcoating the feeling. A very common saying that is heard a lot is to not talk about it–let bygones be bygones. That grief is something that is better left unaddressed.

Unaddressed grief, however, can be very dangerous. Since the feelings are never truly resolved internally, they can manifest in a lot of external ways—like muscle tension, insomnia, avoidance, isolation, and nightmares, among others. Moreover, the tendency to engage in unhealthy coping habits increases. For example, the person can resort to drinking to deal with their suppressed feelings of sadness and guilt.

Thus, grief is an emotion that needs to be experienced. It is only when we experience it that true healing ensues. Grief is not an intellectual response, it is an emotional one. So, using logic is hardly helpful. Starting out small can be a great way to start. It could be as simple as sorting through a loved one’s belongings or looking at old photographs. We just have to bring the feelings to the surface and face our grief gradually on our own terms and with patience.

Looking back, if I could have done anything different then, I would have encouraged my mother to talk about her feelings–her memories with her mother, both pleasant and unpleasant ones. Talking about grief can be intensely therapeutic when there is someone there to listen to us who makes us feel that sadness is not something to be ashamed of. And even if she would not have been comfortable talking during that time, I would have just sat beside her and told her, “It’s okay, Aama.” The knowledge of her child understanding her grief and support would make her feel more connected and acknowledged since grief can be quite a lonely and isolating experience.

When these feelings of grief are experienced, acknowledged and expressed, the feeling becomes much more manageable. Continuing to live our life then and being happy wouldn’t seem like a burden anymore. As the famous saying in the movie ‘P.S. I Love You’ goes, “Losing someone is like having a bunch of rocks in your pocket. As time passes, the rocks never go away, you learn to live with the heaviness.”