Have you asked the strong people in your life how is their heart? Have you given them a chance to lower their guards, to open their soul? Have you embraced them in that hug - you know the one where your arms fold over their shoulders and you lessen the weight they carry, if only temporarily, the one where you pull them in a tight squeeze, the one on in which you don't let go and time pauses briefly and it's just two hearts beating.
two hearts beating. ask them, how their heart is?
It is very likely you will hear the crack of their heart that says, I am dismantling grief. At least that is what my heart says. I have to admit being happy scares the shit out of me. It is a foreign emotion - an uncomfortable one. I can't get myself to delve in this emotion because somewhere in the pit of my stomach I am dreading the next moment when my bubble of happiness will burst. At the back of my rational brain, I am aware that this is my body's standard trauma response reaction but even my self-aware bones and sessions of theraphy have not been able to shake off this fear. I often sit down to decode why and I only have one answer that - grief and I have been like long lost forlorn lovers for far too long.
I seem to wear a cloak of grief on my heart and the heartbreak seems to seep into everything I do. It is not like I have not tried very hard to get rid of this feeling believe me, I have. There have been people around me who have tried their best to shake this feeling off me but what nobody has done is pause and listen.
Listen.
Listen to the fact that this grief gives me strength. That over the period of time Allah has made this grief my armour and that not everything I see is tainted by lens of grief anymore. That I did not even know but Allah knew that I needed this grief to unlock the next version of myself. Because what is the point of any grief in life if it doesn't change you?
Kon baatoon se seekhta hai,
Sab ko ek hadsa zaroori hai.
My grief has had its own journey that taught me what kindness from the soul looks like. I saw things I would have never seen before. I did not see faith instead I experienced faith. I saw duas being answered. I saw Allah's mercy and I saw a glimpse of Allah's love that I had never ever experienced before. I saw Allah's light in a way that the words of the Quran came as a soothing balm to my soul that was on fire. In the expanse of the sky, sound of the waves, and my salty tears, I have felt Allah putting his hand on my heart and saying; "I am here. I got you."
My journey of grief bought me to this eternal realization that this world is nothing but temporary. None of this would have happened if I had not wallowed in my emotion of grief. There is beauty in breaking down. It makes you break that unhealthy human need to fix things. It reminds you that the tank of your heart needs that one breakdown to feel human. To create new patterns. To allow that season of healthy adulting setting in. To allow yourself that rest your soul has been longing for.
It is that tinted lens of grief that gives me room to breathe. I will also admit that there is no way I think that I can heal entirely from grief. It is a dull ache that continues to exist and will probably continue to with other emotions that appear time to time such as joy and happiness. I have been learning how to let both these emotions co-exist because as humans we are adamant on accepting our comfortable emotions than our uncomfortable emotions. There is nothing wrong with our uncomfortable emotions as long as we take them in as lessons of stride. Lessons that make us more human and help us understand what our purpose in life is.
I only see things as a transience now. I see that these trials are necessary to become more human and that the disease of sadness has done me more good than bad. So, why shut it out? If at the end of the day it is this grief that makes me long to meet my Creator everyday then, I will take it with a smile on my face. If it is this grief that makes me constantly worry about being a better human for my Creator then I will indulge in it, always. If it is this grief that has taught me the raw version of empathy then I think, I am doing okay.
More than okay on somedays.
Love, light and healing.
Until next time,
Shanzay.