28/01/2023
How? How much? How long do we mourn the loss of a loved one? After how many days can we switch off the sorrow button? Go to a restaurant? Have a get together with friends? Share a hearty laugh? Watch a movie? Eat ice cream?
Is there a guideline or a rule book available? A standardised brochure perhaps?
Mourning looks different on different people. Some might wear it like a cloak to avoid social interactions, giving them the required time and space to heal. While some might bury it deep inside, outwardly going about their business as usual, gaining strength from the synergy of their world to heal the wounds inside.
To each his own!
In either case the superficial behaviour is no measure for the pain within.
Let us not be in a hurry to chastise ourselves or criticise others for mourning too much or too little. How much is ‘just right’ anyway?
Let us give ourselves and others the freedom to heal at our/their own pace, in our/their own way, as per our/their own comfort.
The people who pass away or part from us for whatever reason, carry with them a piece of our heart. And leave behind a piece of theirs, gelled onto ours. And we go through life with this patchwork of a heart, carrying all those hearts with us whom we have loved, lost, missed.
An untouched heart might be in perfect shape. But that is not how a heart is supposed to be. The heart which is broken and mended, scarred and restored, with fragments of memories stitched on with laughter and soaked in tears; that is the heart which has laughed and cried, loved and lived to the fullest.
Smiles and heartache and hugs and tears,
A little bit of everything, if you may;
Give me the patchwork heart, any day!
Sanjivani
