A Dance With Grief

On Love, Loss and Life Beyond Death

Personal photo. Pops with his late mother days before her death.

“But death belongs; it’s not the burden… Endings are not to blame.”
– Malkia Devich-Cyril

As a boy, I was so afraid of death that I couldn’t sleep. I would lay in the dark for hours staring into the blue glimmers of moonlight just beyond my window, but rest never came. Terrified of closing my eyes, I held the weight of my mortality in my small hands.

My worries held me captive. What happens when I die? Will I feel pain? Will I know I am dead? Is there another life beyond this place? My queries frightened me, spacious and cavernous, like a black hole in the depths of the cosmos.

Here one moment and gone the next? I refused to face the truth of it. Through teary, tired eyes, I figured the only way to ensure I would wake up again was never to sleep. I created an imaginary world where I never had to say goodbye, where loved ones breathed forever.

For a while, I got lucky. As a high schooler, I reveled in the health of all my grandparents, still alive. I wore it as a badge; life in my corner was prosperous. I even saw my father get sick with Stage 4 bladder cancer and survive. Given two months to live, save for a risky life-or-death operation, he came out stronger. Despite a dismal confrontation with mortality, my imaginary…