How do you speak about grief? Isn’t it silent by constitution? You can only live with it, like you would live with a person. There are days when there is too much of them and then there are days when they are just a passive presence. Age catches up with grief too. It might outlive you or die before you. Only you will know about it. You can attempt to talk or write about it but it will only reveal what happened. How do you put into words something that is an absence of everything, yet potent in its feeling? Language relies on words and words are deficient in that they mean something specific. You could grind meaning into a fine powder, put it in a capsule and you would end up with a word. Grief doesn’t have a meaning. It is not even permanent. It doesn’t have a colour and being opaque, it doesn’t reflect anything.

Here is what I understand. Grief is this nebulous presence, taking on forms that we can’t trace the contours of. You just have to trust that it is there and is up to something. There is no running away from it, there is no curing it. Accept it. Live with it. It will choose its farewell. Don’t look forward to it, there is no telling when.