“Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding” – Virginia Woolf, The Waves

Death and I have been intimately intertwined for as long as I can remember.

I’ve written and sung about it, studied it — asked for it.

The first time someone close to me died, it was my great grandmother Beli, one of the purest souls I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. When I was small, I slept in her bed, listened to her stories, helped her finish crossword puzzles, brushed her hair. In return, she taught me how to pray, sew, and pay attention to the smallest of moments–like squirrels walking the wires of my backyard.

She also taught me love, unconditional and endless.

As she started the process of untethering (life will prepare you for death), she began to forget things, like where she placed her glasses, how to cook, even my name at times–calling me by my mother’s or my aunt’s.

She forgot everything, except how to pray. She could still pray the entire rosary.

When I got the FaceTime from my mother the afternoon she died, no words were really said between us. I knew from the expression on her face and the painting in the background —revealing Beli’s apartment—that death had come. That moment never ends in my head-it just goes on and on and on and on. No more holding her hand, no more of her stories, no more praying together.

Still, I didn’t understand death then–not nearly as much as I do now.

Exactly one year ago today, I came face-to-face with death in a manner which I did not expect. My father had taken a trip to Cuba to look after some sick relatives, and a few days before he was supposed to return, was hospitalized.

He was diabetic, which meant the risks were higher anytime he contracted anything. We had a bad feeling from the moment we found out. Still, I tried to hold on to my faith. I spent hours looking up his chances of survival as a diabetic man hospitalized under Cuba’s conditions. I tried to walk away the dark thoughts. I wrote. I sung. I prayed (something that I hadn’t done in years and brought me back to Beli).

I wanted to believe he would come back to me. Even in my dreams that night, I clung to that faith. I dreamt that we were in that hospital bed in Cuba together. I was tucked right under his arm like a small child, while we watched every moment we ever shared together play before us like a film—

until the phone call woke me. It was my cousin, the one my father was staying with in Cuba.

“tu Papa falleció.”

He died. My father died. He died. He died. He died. My sister and I stared at each other, trying to grasp at any words that might comfort us but none would do.

The silence filled—nothing else filled.

When we called my little brother into the room to tell him, his face lost all expression, too. I can’t shake the image from my memory. That initial moment contains a suffering so profound that it makes no sense to my brain at all but always, always gets a reaction from my heart. On our way home to our family (we had been on vacation with my mother), I somehow found it in me to journal and meditate in the name of loving awareness.

The sun had only just risen. The sky looked gentle and inviting. I couldn’t help but feel at peace, despite the grief taking root in me.

When my grandmother came back from Cuba (she had been with my father), I spent multiple nights sleeping in between her and my aunt. Our eyes were raw from the tears, our bodies: fragile shells of the people we once were; we could barely sleep or eat or even speak.

It was a very silent time for my family. There was a lot of suffering.

But there was also a lot of love, too, an abundance of it, really. I tried to exist in that space of light as much as I could.

I got my grandmother to share stories from her childhood with me to get things off her mind, we prayed together, had lots of coffee (something we did often with my father), and, desperate at first, were able to rationalize my dad’s death until we could finally accept it.

Eventually, I returned home to my own space. That day the sky was shedding itself completely. I stepped outside and let the rain wash over me.

I laid my body down on the dirt and listened to the sounds of nature’s outpour, then to my own heartbeat, over and over and over. It was almost like being held by my father again. I thought maybe the rain was some sort of message for my family, for me, that the Earth was grieving, too,

that “loss” is only a ripple into the sea of eternity.

A lot of what happened in the weeks that followed are hazy. All I know is that I tried to feel my grief as freely as I could. I tried to stop thinking about how I could’ve possibly been a better daughter, how I could’ve told him that he was the father figure we all needed from my aunts to my grandmother to my cousins to us, his three children, how he changed my life and continues to do so even after his death. The circumstances of the situation often made me go to dark places. I wished I had been in that hospital bed in Cuba with him like in the dream I had. I wished I had called him like he wanted a few nights prior to his hospitalization. I wished I had control over it, all of it, and don’t we all? But in many ways it was perfect how things happened. Maybe I didn’t need to see him in such a dire state. Maybe all he needed was his mother and the country he loved. My faith remained in me and carried me through the darkest night of the soul. Thanks to my trust in this life, I walked the shadows of grief with grace and on I will go.

I started college only a few weeks after. There were so many times that I would start tearing up during lectures or wish that I could tell my dad about my school day only to remember that I couldn’t. Still, I was full of joy. I was more grateful than ever. I couldn’t believe happiness was possible after such suffering–but it was,

and it is.

I’ve never feared death. I have craved it, studied it, honored it, even asked for it, but I have never feared it. Until my father died, I hadn’t realized that death was still nothing but a concept to me. Only once he died did I really start to fear it. I couldn’t stop obsessing over seeing everyone as often as possible because what if something happens and I never get to see them again? I started worrying about my health a lot, too, obsessively asking myself how much longer I’d have on this Earth. I even looked up my life expectancy. And keep in mind, I’ve dealt with suicidal thoughts since elementary school, so this was new for me.

Exactly one year ago today, my father died. Exactly one year ago today, the desire for death left me. I don’t cling to my suffering anymore; in fact, I try not to cling to anything at all. I can’t ignore the trials of this life, but I can’t ignore the blessings of it either. I can’t ignore that both are intertwined and necessary and wonderful in their own divine ways, even if sometimes I can’t understand quite how.

Since my father died, I have honored (and LOVED) my life like never before. I have gotten even closer to family, friends, and myself. I have witnessed newly found strength and faith in those that have grieved beside me. We have all become more grateful, honest, united, and more passionate about the art of living. It’s so strange how things work. All my father ever wanted for us was exactly what we embodied after his departure.

Now, yes, I will spend some of today in tears–but that doesn’t mean I will forget to smile or laugh or hold my grandmother or write a poem or dance around. I will hold the day with grateful arms, recognizing the harmony in it all, letting everything wash over me without expecting any of it to last–knowing that it won’t. Death is no longer just a concept in my mind. It is real–as is life.

O Death! not to understand nor tame you but to honor you in pure surrender, lest we wish to forget the living that precedes you, that would cease to exist without you.

A few of my personal resources for grief (though the best resource is within and around you):

https://yssofindia.org/spiritual/understanding-death-and-loss

https://www.ramdass.org/walking-each-other-home/

+ I am here for you, too. If you are grieving or suffering in any way, whether it be spiritual, emotional, mental, or physical, my heart holds space for you, too, to crawl inside and make yourself a bed that you may rest in love and light.

May All Beings Everywhere be Happy and Free.