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| 𝘃𝗶𝗮 𝗝𝗼𝗰𝗲𝗹𝘆𝗻 𝗠𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗱𝗲𝗺, 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗺 𝗣𝗛
They don’t tell you that the hardest part of grief isn’t the funeral — it’s the morning after. When the world is quiet, the bed is cold, and you wake up hoping it was all just a bad dream. But it isn’t. And that’s when the weight of loss truly begins.
I still remember how I wept when I learned that she passed away. I came home, she's not in the bed where she had been for the past few months. They said they already took her away, and I asked, "Why didn't you wait for me?"
I was told that she was taken away in a black body bag. I was shocked and heartbroken, as I thought that she would be wheeled out of the house in a stretcher bed, covered in white cloth. But it was explained to me that it really is how funeral parlors get the people that had passed away from their homes.
There are a lot of things I can't remember from that time. But surely, I remember how I collected myself because I have to help arrange for the funeral. I stopped crying because I got busy.
I went to the cemetery to see what will be her new home, and I went to the mall to have her picture, which will be displayed on top of her casket, developed. That time, I was still asking myself if this is really happening. And then I got a call: "She's home."
I waited for a moment when the living room where she was would be empty before seeing her. Nobody told me that the moment you saw them lying in a casket was also the moment it would click that they are really gone.
I looked at her only for minutes before walking out. I went to her room and wept in front of her folded wheelchair, where I wept and wept until the tears no longer came out because my eyes were so sore from crying.
She was warmth in human form. And now, the world feels a little colder.
The five days of the funeral came fast. And now, it has been months after she was buried. Many people expected me to have already moved on, but I know deeply that grief lingers.
Grief lingers in the quiet moments — the untouched coffee cup, the empty chair at the table, the scent of her still trapped in the air, slowly fading away day by day. It hides in the sound of a song you both loved, in a photo you took, and in the familiar way someone else says their name. It stays in your chest like a dull ache, showing up without warning on ordinary days when the world feels just a little too quiet. Even laughter feels different now, like it’s missing something.
Grief is not loud all the time; it’s subtle and patient. It weaves itself into your routines, your memories, and your pauses. And though life keeps going, grief walks beside you, gently reminding you of everything that once was and everything that will never be the same.
