How to Mother your Grief

even when it gets really hard

Photo by Nils Geldner on Unsplash

I remember grief like my skin. I remember it while watching dusk light turn to a golden-pink in my car’s rear-view mirror. A cat scratching her thighs mid-street. Sunlight kissing her fur.

I remember grief as the friend I no longer speak to. Dust on an old wooden bench. Between the cracks of my school’s walls. Like dew dripping down the glass of my mind. A ghost hovering around my eyes.

An old number scribbled between the browning leaves of a phone-book. Remembered all of a sudden. Out of nowhere.

I remember grief like the brother I never had. The uncle I never got to meet.

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My mother’s older brother was born with a hole in his heart. Amma says her first five years with him were like dreams that break upon awakening. A fragment of imagination. A grey cloud sitting atop her chest. Grief is a long sleep from which I don’t want to awaken. Grief, like a memory that gets snatched even before it’s fully born.

Rainy-night grief. Summer-day grief. Soil-brown grief. Blue-pink grief. Sea-deep grief. Red-walled grief. Unopened grief. Doors of grief. Ferns of grief. Windless grief. Flowerless grief.

I remember grief like words I did not say when I should’ve said them. To people I cared about. I remember grief like lines from a song I forgot mid-way after beginning to sing it.

I remember grief like a stranger. Like the memory of a woman I met on a crooked street. Like the last glimpse of a fading sunset. Sunset dripping down my moulded window. I remember grief like the forgiveness I never received from people I loved. Though I don’t know what I was sorry for. If there was anything to be sorry for.

Grief, like wind pressing itself against my throat. Like soggy plums. Like an unwatered rose. Like an overgrown lily. Grief, like a stranger who had come knocking at my door for a glass of water. But fainted even before he could hold it.

And grief, like the kind person that I too have grown to be. How I hold this stranger up, bring him in—tuck him into my soft blue bed.

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Grief Threads: Learning how to Befriend our Grief

I am nervous & excited to announce Grief Threads— the paid edition of my newsletter. Members of my writing community, Wildflowers are Prayers will have FREE access to my paid Substack PLUS hundreds of other perks. Wildflowers has the best value amongst all my offerings. We meet for 4 two hour long generative (and craft writing sessions) every month. Apart from that: we are housed in a beautiful app where we share bonus prompts, submission opportunities, exclusive reading packets. A special forum where you can always share your writing for thoughtful feedback. What’s even better? Wildflowers has some of the absolute best writers writing today.

As a paid subscriber to my Substack, you’ll have access to:

1. The art of Deep-Diving into a Poem/Essay, Close Reading it for Structure & Wonder (once a month)

2. An exclusive curation of poems & essays. I will be sending these in the form of monthly emails (along with some details on my writing community, that I’ll be sending everyone in my list. You can of course opt out of them whenever you want).

3. A special section called “Grief Threads” - devoted to an exploration of grief. How to befriend it, heal from it, write about it in a way that feels emotionally safe.

4. All my essays on Grief so far— a whole archive of my Substack + my Grief-writing.