Here You Lived and Here You Stay

How do you grieve?

Death and grief are not one in the same. I learned this from the ease in which my mother would speak of her own end. Sometimes it was to convince us to take up more chores around the house and other times it came as a way to prepare us. Back then I would get angry and tell her to never say such things, but as I grew older I started to understand that to hold death as heavily and as fearfully as I did was no use to someone who had seen so much of it. I mean, what better gift to pass on than the acceptance of the end. The difference between death and grief, as I have come to realize, is that grief unlike death is never-ending and it comes with no guidance. Suddenly the mouths once heavy with wisdom and warnings fall victim to the silence that follows the final sprinkle of soil.

Recently I’ve found myself thinking about grief in one way or another. I’m no stranger to loss, I’ve experienced quite a bit of it (as many Rwandans have), but with Covid I’ve found myself in conversations that had me revisiting the ways I hold my grief. The first memories I have of loss are confusing, I was too young and the adults around me had already created their own rituals of grief that they deemed too harsh to share with children. To them, a child's grief was insignificant. We “forget” too easily so why bother with something as ugly as grief?

The only thing I knew of loss was that it came suddenly and was announced like any other news. 

“Rayon Sport lost yesterday, oh and your aunt is dead.” 

Death was discussed with such a casualness that my fear and tears seemed out of place. I cried silently and in the moments that I failed and my tears were heard, elders measured the years they had known the dead against my youth and scoffed at my audacity. The elders held their “indifference” to death as a badge of honor, it was strong to not break down and weep in the face of insurmountable loss. Here, we do not all grieve, we simply carry on. I struggle with this.

You see, those I've lost left me with promises of seeing each other later. An aunt called on my birthday and promised a surprise party I never saw. A cousin hugged me goodbye with a promise of trips that I never got to take. A mentor opened a door for me that she never watched me enter. I tell you this, not to cause you sadness, but because I had recently come to the realization that I have not grieved many of the losses I have felt. I use “grieve” here to mean that I haven’t gone through the typical process of grief. Until recently I believed there was a right way to grieve. That in the end you must lay them to rest and carry on as though they were never here. That there’s a weight that is supposed to lift after a few months and that the ones haunted by death, the ones unable to contend with life's only promise that we all die, are the weak ones.

When I was younger, I cried and wept alone and then clumsily put together a world for my loved ones to live without their promises and wishes going unfulfilled. I’ve been placing their memory into that space, deep in the depths of my mind, where they live and breathe though they do not age. Now, as I lose those I hold dear I build them a home here. With me. And when I have another birthday (whether it be a surprise or not), publish my first novel, or simply think of them, they will be here. Safe and sound watching me carry on our promises.

I write this to say that there is no right way to lose someone. Grief like any other human experience needs to be learned, and if you are like me and nobody has taught you I hope this helps in some way. There is no criteria for how much loss deserves to be grieved, so create your own rituals and hold them in whichever way you choose. Death doesn’t have to be final if you don’t wish it to be, maybe you build them a world, maybe you let them rest or maybe you carry the sadness with you. The point is, you have loved and are loved and you will continue to love and be loved.