Grief and The Tenth Day of January

 

We were a gang, a tribe before this day arrived 24 years ago

Few dates have a sense of grief attached to them. They arrive every year, a new day, a new morning, yet the old sadness that lingers in their window curtains never ceases to exist. Time is but a spectator at their doorstep, incapable of exercising her power of regeneration. Unable to heal. Unable to cure. Unable to dismiss tragedies in her waves.

I often think about how all of us know of such dates in our lives. Some old, some raw. Days when the lights went out, darkness prevailed and hope seemed like a distant dream. Days when life came to a stuttering stop, time slowed down and the rain refused to end.

All that remained was grief.

This 10th day of January is one such date. A day from a distant past, yet one which reminds me of an ageless pain. This day whispers to me in a slow sad tone now, speaking of the one who left us more than two decades ago. Reminding me of all the conversations we never had, the movies and songs we never discussed, the places we couldn’t visit together.

The life we couldn’t share.

We were a gang, a tribe of our own, before this godforsaken day ripped us apart.

What is the colour of grief? Is it black, like the darkest night of the month? Is it Blue like the winter sky, like depression and loneliness? Or is it red?

Or perhaps, grief is colourless, like the way she sucks the life out of one’s world.

Grief is the ageless pain that lingers in our hearts, of which we speak to few. The salty tears that have memories of their own, shed every year in silence. The late-night thoughts that we keep to ourselves.

Grief is also a solitary day in January, that has repeated itself every year, for the past 24 years, and has reminded me that life is precious. That everything else in the world is meaningless.

I miss you, Tuttu.