We spend our whole lives around 'people'. Some are insignificant, while others we love dearly. Some are just passing through, while others stick with us, long enough to leave a lasting impression. Then there are those that are joined with us forever. Our parents, our siblings, our significant others, all become our loved ones... our family.
We live and breathe around these people. We soak up their energy, become absorbed in their warmth, in their smell, in their essence. We feel them, we are a part of one another. Your parents are a part of you; your brothers or sisters, your husband or wife... all become a part of us. We slowly begin to take advantage of their presence, as we continue to keep up with our fast paced lives. That 'sense of belonging' takes a back seat to everything else we need to pay attention to in life.
One day, one person dies.
It's a strong word, yet we say it with such ease when it refers to someone we don't know. However, when it touches someone dear to us, we are left terrified and scarred by this word.
First we get through our grief by remembering that person's presence. How they smiled, how they smelled, the texture of their hands, their face. The shape of their hair. How they walked, talked, sat, stood... all of their habits and vices... their simple presence.
With time, this too becomes blurry. You can no longer smell them in the clothes that they left behind. Those clothes are just clothes now. They're not his anymore. They don't smell like him anymore. They're just plain clothes.
Before when you walked into his room you still felt his presence. You fool yourself by thinking "Oh, he's just in the other room... I just can't see him. We keep missing each other." Slowly that disappears as well. Now you walk into his room and you know he's not there.
His shaving cream is still in the washroom. His coat is still in the closet, his shoes are still there along with everyone elses. His tools still in the garage. No one has the courage to remove them. They sit still waiting for him to adorne them again... of course that will never happen. But they're not his anymore. They don't carry his presence anymore. They're just objects that everyone ignores.
The images in your mind become foggy. You begin to forget the sound of his voice. You strain your ears to hear him again clearly, but you can't. It's fading. You try to envision his smile, but it keeps fading away. You become desperate to just feel...once more how it felt to hug your own father. To feel the protection of your father. His love and his guidance. But even the thought of it seems foreign now... unfamiliar... as if you don't deserve it.
Is that someone now just a memory? Something that comes in passing and then slowly fades... Something that people think you've just "learned to live with" as the rest of the world continues to move forward...
Death and loss touches everyone at some point in their lives and it does so in many different ways. It just surprises me how someone could be such a big part of your life and then just... disappear. How even their scent, their image from your mind... how it all just fades...
A loss, a memory, then just a story.
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