The last few weeks, India has seen an unbearable amount of tragedy. Almost everyone I know, including me, has lost someone to Covid 19. Sitting so far away while my country bleeds, makes it harder to be normal and go about things normally. So today instead of writing about what I was originally going to write about, I thought I will address this burden of grief that many of us are feeling. 

Yesterday someone I knew passed away. It made me think of all the friends I have lost over the years- six. Six wonderful people lost to depression, cancer, accident, stroke, cardiac arrest and coronavirus. They are always with me. They have made a home in one corner of my mind and pop up when I least expect it. Their smiles still vivid in my memory. 

Everyone has different ways of handling grief. Yesterday when I read about this person I knew, I was still in bed. I felt my whole body go numb. All sorts of thoughts went through my mind; first, rage towards the Indian government and then I thought of the black plague and all the books I’ve read and movies I’ve seen about it. This doesn’t seem much different, does it? Thousands dying everyday and turning into a statistic. Parents, siblings, children, partners, friends left behind to fathom the unfairness of those unnecessary deaths. 

I got lost in this mental quagmire for a few hours with images flashing through my mind. Thankfully I had to go to coach girls, which I do twice a week. That was exactly what I needed. Energetic, innocent girls, giggling and laughing blissfully unaware of the ephemeral nature of life. While pretending to be giggling and laughing with them, I forgot my grief for a while. 

While walking back from the coaching, the grief started creeping in again and those six smiling faces popped up in my head telling me that ‘life’, us the living, must go on and hold dear this fleeting life that we have. I know I sound preachy but I feel grief makes a philosopher of us all.

I dedicate today’s post to all those who have lost their lives prematurely and also to all those who are braving it out there and working on the field everyday to help others.