When a loved one goes away life seems empty and incomplete, but when a loved one is gone forever life just stops making sense. I will forever abhor 2016 for the teaching me this clear distinction.

You may find, in the first instance, that many things do not please you as much as they did before. Nothing will please you in the second. You will seek out distractions and industry in either case but in the first instance, you will find that you are thankful for it. However, mourning a loss of life tends to make you feel guilty and remorseful and ashamed at times for the same.

No matter how melancholy you are at the parting of a dear friend, you will never stop to find the resilience of life wonderous (or jarring or dismaying) instead you just marvel at the resilience of your heart and shake your head. A loss of life that was part of your own, will make you loathe that same resilience.

Then again, time is supposed to vanquish the first wound and only partially heal the other.

To all my friends and loved ones near and far, I say this, if I appear not my usual self, pardon me and bear with me, for I am finding navigating through a loss a whole lot more to handle that I ever imagined.

To my papa, I want to say this –

“The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,
Nor falsehood disavow.”