My Darling, You’ve Been Missed

Article in brief: Pain comes in all sorts of forms and the worst thing of it all is learning how to live with them.

“Darling you’ve been missed.”  is a phrase that automatically appears in my head when I hear my grandfather’s name or see his picture…

I lost my grandfather recently, and what a traumatic experience that was. Though it still hurts, I remind myself that he’s in a better place right now and that my tears would never bring him back or help him in his grave.

My grandfather meant a great deal to me; in my eyes he was truly a perfect man. He was a well educated human being who was known for his wisdom. He treated everyone equally and was simply caring. He was genuinely nice and he didn’t care about your race, roots, or where you came from. As long as you were respectful of everyone, he’d respect you in return.

I related to him a lot and that made me fall in love with him even more. We both had this special love for the written word and we both are writers. His poetry is the epitome of beauty, and the way he handled his art was exquisite. Sure, we handled different languages, but I never felt like he undermined my interests.

Losing someone you love doesn’t get easier even when days go by; if anything, it only gets worse. The pain increases as another day goes by of you not seeing them and that leads you to missing them even more. From my experience, I learned that you don’t stop missing them or wanting them to come back, you just learn to cope with it.

The main thing that helps you get by is remembering all the good memories that person’s existence held and also praying for them and for your heart to heal because you’ll only feel good when your spirit is at rest.

Also, spending time with family members who know exactly how much pain you’re going through helps immensely. There’s no greater love than a support system’s love, especially when that support system is your own flesh and blood.

I try to keep myself busy to forget that he’s no longer there but at the end of the day, I get a sense of frustration and emotional sorrow because I do realize that things will never be the same without him, I’m anything but delusional.

I went through a downward spiral and what got me through this other than family’s and friend’s love, is reminding myself that ‘This too shall pass’ and that my heart will learn to live with it as soon as I make him proud of me.

My current aim is to work ever harder to prove that I am not all talk. My last words to him were a promise of dedicating my book to him. I really wanted him to be around to be proud of me but sadly, it was his time to return to Allah. As far as I’m concerned, I’m determined on living up to that promise because it’s the only thing I have left of him.

Note: The author is publishing her debut novel “Alatash” on 7th of November, 2013 in Sharjah International Book Fair, and she will be there for book signing.