Is death a part of life? Should we embrace it? Does it heal with time? I don’t know yet.
All I know is that when a person dies, they leave a hole in their shape in your heart. In your life. A hole that you cannot possibly fit anyone else in. A hole that doesn’t suit anyone but that person. You can never prepare yourself for this because you never know the depth of this hole. You’ll never understand how much a person meant to you until this strikes.

The sight of your parent talking to their deceased parent and welling up. Your sibling who’s close to the grandparent crying uncontrollably.

Moving their little things around feel heavy.

What was once an active body now sits in a freezer box. Visitors huddle around the box. It’s a ritual to talk good about people when they’re gone. To a place where they’re no longer accessible.

It’s confounding how the sad story when told each time someone visits, turns into a routine. The sadness goes down degree by degree with each passing narration. Sad, religious gatherings turn into streaks of laughter. Then into peals, and slowly into riots.
Their absence doesn’t hit you till you’re alone at home and you realise you don’t have to do the things you do for them.

More than the person, the memories of things they did live longer.

The small things starting from where they sit to the bed they slept on, from how they never turned off the faucet to how their voice sounded.

The hole can never be filled. You can only try.