I had to process all stages of grief in one day. People that have been in my life since I was born are falling apart over the death of my uncle - B. Well past midnight, my cousin P called crying her heart out over her guilt of not trying harder to intervene. My mother's rage at the needless passing of her baby brother is white hot but she is too heart-broken to cause any destruction with it. I think I am glad for that. All day, I found myself making phone calls - at the other end I was met with disbelief, anger, shock and guilt depending on who it was.
Each time, I got of the phone, I felt a little more incapacitated and more squeezed out of space to experience my own grief. I keep hearing B's jovial voice in my ear as he called my name the way he used to when I called him. Each time that happens, I feel the tears coming - I wish I had called him more often, spent more time in India when I was last there. And someone or something interrupts that train of thought, B's voice fades away and there is that hollow silence that nothing can fill.
One of my childhood friends who is close to my parents reports that he spoke to my mother and she is not holding up well. J says the same thing after speaking with my mother. I am not sure how I can help - she is drowning in this toxic mix of grief over her loss and anger at B's wife for her mismanagement of the situation, for blindsiding the whole family, for her brother ending up in a body bag, being cremated like he was toxic waste, for there not being an urn with his ashes they could float in the river close to their ancestral village that he longed to visit.
At work, only a few people know most don't understand. Despite all the inclusivity and diversity training, it is lost on many who are not from my cultural background, that a maternal uncle can be a pivotal figure in a person's life. They don't understand why B's passing is such a big deal for me - one woman did not even offer her condolences when I told her. I was so shocked that it altered my entire thinking about who she was as a person and my professional relationship with her. I dread having to meet her in days to come. One of my Sri Lankan colleagues got it right away, he offered to pick my work for a week so I could properly grieve. I could not do that to him, the man already works over fifty hours a week. But I deeply appreciated his desire to help me find that immediate quiet space to feel the pain to the degree I needed to heal in the end.
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