Last week found me observing the fourth anniversary of my best friend’s death. We lost him to Covid at the height of the second wave. It still feels like he is out there, wandering about somewhere, and has simply forgotten to call.
When his loss was less than a month old, it used to be difficult to tell the difference between his temporary absence on account of work, and the lifelong sense of loss that was going to be my life. The end result in both cases was the same – me, alone, without him. But while his temporary absence was made tolerable by the hope and knowledge that he will show up soon enough, his death broke my mind’s ability to comprehend any duration of time without him.
His absence was forever. It will now always be forever. I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
What do you mean he is not coming?
Whenever I was hit by the realisation that he was never coming, a pit would form in my stomach and it would feel like the ground beneath my feet had disappeared. Going through life felt like looking at a book with no knowledge of grammar or language.
Presence, especially a loved one’s presence, is a strange thing. It is more than just someone being there. It is also the promise of that person when they are not around. It is their being in one’s thoughts, memories, and in the larger view of one’s world. It is in the many small decisions you make about travel, clothes, food, or entertainment because they are a part of it all.
When I lost my best friend, it felt like a loss of my ability to do anything and everything. Like I was at the beginning of life again, in need of learning how to live once more.
Perhaps that’s what grief is – struggling to learn how to live again.
One of the things I learned was that having a true friend is a rather rare thing. It had never crossed my mind that what I had with my best friend was something most people never get to experience. In fact, in the days following his death, whenever I found myself telling people what had happened, I found a kind of incomprehension in their eyes. They didn’t know what to say because they didn’t understand what had actually happened, what I had actually lost.
People understand the death of a parent, or a spouse, or a child on some level. But the presence of a friend is not easy to understand for most, let alone his absence. This is probably because in our times, the word friend has more or less come to denote an acquaintance, or a work colleague, or any number of random strangers who one follows and is followed by on social networking apps. So when I say “my friend is no more”, people don’t know what to do with it.
However, great friendships are often also mythologised in much the same way as romantic relationships are, making them aspirational for many and pretty much fictional for most. People end up seeing it as this cinematic thing full of song and dance that wasn’t made for them. Something so magical that it cannot possibly be real.
It was real.
I had it.
I lost it.
I lost someone I could be vulnerable in front of, someone who I exchanged secrets with for safekeeping in a world where every aspect of people’s lives is online and being monetised. Someone who I could sit with for hours without speaking a word. Someone who didn’t like my social media posts or comment on them and yet was the deepest “connection” I ever made.
People say belief in god provides one with mechanisms to deal with the loss of loved ones. I have never seen much evidence of it. In fact, I have seen the opposite on a number of occasions – people losing faith because they lost someone precious to them. I was an atheist when my friend passed, so I didn’t have a similar disillusionment. I had had it years ago, for other reasons.
But what gives me solace is the understanding that the universe is vast and beyond easy comprehension for mortals like us. We are all bundles of molecules wandering around after somehow awakening into consciousness. The state of consciousness does not last of course, and we return to being bundles of molecules again. But before that happens, in the span of time between our awakening and our final sleep, we live, love, and laugh. I am simply a bundle of molecules that considers itself fortunate that the bundle of molecules that is my friend was awake at the same time as I was. One day soon, I myself will return to the state he is in right now and we will occupy space and time, in various forms or formlessly, till the universe itself comes to an end.
11 responses to “On living with loss”
I lost my friend to hypertension, it took me so long to accept it, I would always imagine his smiles, reassurances and what not. Thank you for sharing Vimoh.
I’m sorry for your loss. Thanks for the kind words.
It was a deeply moving piece Vimoh. Sorry for your loss. I too have lost someone who is as precious to me as that friend was for you. When we lose someone so precious forever, we get whirled into the regret for not fully living every moment when that person was with us. We regret to have taken their presence for granted. And for not appreciating that presence completely. Our mind grapples with that guilt and start calculating what we might have done differently not to lose that person. May be because we never imagine that one day they will be gone.
Now, we miss that person now and then. We miss whenever something interesting thing pops up. We miss that sharing, those deep discussions of hours, and that gossip. Such people become part of your very individuality itself. And with their loss a kind of disability arises. With long time association we already have developed a unique dependence & that sudden independence eats us thoroughly. They start visiting in your dreams. Our eyes look for them at every place where they are seen previously.
Such connections are rare where we never had any reason to be with that person. Reasonless, intention-less, non dual, non purposeful, without thinking of the past or even of the future. They just are pure, timeless, and unconditional.
Just their presence is enough. Sometimes even that doesn’t require, as you have said, that we are assured about their presence after sometime.
But when that person goes from our life forever, everything changes.
Now, we are compelled to see the broader picture. As an episode in our life. As painful as it is we must carry on. We have to learn to hold that aching desire to see them again, without letting it consume us. It is terribly painful to move on but we have to.
Sometimes, we find ourselves wishing to fast forward our life, just to meet them again, in some other realm, if anything such exists. Sometimes we find ourselves praying for such place to exist. As Rumi said: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
Thank you for your kind words Nirbhay.
I am sorry for your loss. This beautiful eulogy reminds me of one such 15 years ago by Mark Pilgrim: “Me, but you, but me. We all need at least a couple of 25 year friends. Here’s hoping you will find yours.
Thanks for sharing this. It was beautiful.
i can feel you <3
Honestly, this post hits like a punch to a gut – every time I’m a market or just sitting on a bench and looking at just everything around me, if something catches my eye, the first thing I think of is that my friend(s) would’ve liked this. The ache goes so far to even think the two or three of us standing there admiring or bantering, and I know exactly how the dialogue goes, except it’s happening in a different world, or it’s all in my head because it’s not real for me, is it?
My condolences for your loss. I hope peace with the pain has slowly found its way to you that you couldn’t see before.
Thank you for the comment. I get where you are coming from.
This was a beautiful read. The last bit about molecules feels so much more reassuring than any other alternative offered by any religion. I felt the same way when I lost my grandmother. One less person now who cares about me in the way only grandmothers can.
Each relationship moulds a unique feature within us, it’s difficult to disentangle which part of us comes from whom. In our brief time on earth, in the end, we are a mosaic of people we love and are loved by.
beautifully written.and v.poetical.