When The World Stops

TW: Grief

Losing my grandmother in 2020 was the first major loss I had experienced. I had never felt the sucker punch of a doctor saying I’m so sorry for your loss. I had never experienced the feeling of life being frozen. It was almost as if the world had stopped spinning beneath my feet.

I remember driving to the funeral home with my family to meet my grandpa, uncle, and cousin to sort out the details for the visitation and the funeral. As I watched other cars drive past, going to the store, to restaurants, living their lives, I felt jealous. Why did they get to carry on as normal? Why did my family have to go through this? It wasn’t fair.

I understand that the world did not stop, nor did time, the week of her passing, but my world stopped. My grandma died the night before a new semester started. On the way home from the hospital, I said I was going to email my professors and explain what was going on, and that I would not be in class the next day. One of my classes was Tuesdays and Thursdays in the afternoon, and the Thursday of that week, I was in class.

If anything, it feels like the rest of the world has sped up, while you're standing completely still. With everything going on with your family, maybe you've missed school or work, events or get togethers. But none of that really seems to matter, does it?

I never realized how quickly things happen after losing a loved one. I believe this is mostly a United States cultural thing, because other cultures spend more time grieving and have more ceremonial events than we do. As I said, Grandma passed away at the beginning of a week–Monday. The visitation was Thursday, the funeral on Friday. And on Saturday, it was all over. Obviously the grieving didn't stop, but the constant stream of people surrounding us faded, and life went back to a somewhat-normal pace. It wasn't normal, of course. We were missing a huge piece of normalcy.

Maybe the hardest part of grieving is knowing that it will never go away. You may not think about it very often, but it's still there, waiting for you to hear a song or smell someone's perfume to pounce once more.

Maybe, someday, it won't hurt as much to be in their house, their bedroom. Maybe you can laugh at the pictures instead of weeping.

I don't think our loved ones would want us to be hurting forever. I think they would want us to live, to follow our dreams, and to make them proud.

I may not know you or your loved one, but I think you're doing a pretty good job at that.

–Abbie