Grief, Part 1

A year ago on this day when my grandma died, the toughest ordeal was deciding whether or not I was grieving properly. It was my first experience with a death in the family, and I was furious with myself for not crying at all that day.

The best I could do that morning, after my mom had called to inform me that Grandma passed away, was to throw things around my room as loudly and violently as possible. I wanted to make sure all of my roommates heard me. But obviously, even with every bookcase spilled to the floor and papers ripped and crumpled up everywhere and pillows smashed against the windows, that wasn't enough to prove anything to myself. I was so stupid.

It's not that my grief wasn't sincere -- far from it -- I just believed that I somehow needed to prove my love for my grandma to myself and to the outside world. I just felt like I owed her something.

The cremation ceremony which took place on the day of the funeral a few days later was easily one of the worst things I had ever experienced, but still I could not cry. I was too scared to even fake it. My uncle flipped the switch of the cremation oven and the Buddhist monks bizarrely started chanting and everyone immediately started sobbing -- everyone except me. I wanted to cry more than anything in the world, but I was so numb. Literally. My teeth and fists were clenched so hard that I couldn't even feel the right side of my body anymore.

I thought about what was happening to my grandma inside that oven. My eyes were fixated in her direction, where I imagined her skin boiling and bubbling and eventually bursting into flames. Her flesh drying up and cracking. Her bones turning black. Becoming ash.

I couldn't see inside the oven, but I knew that my grandma wasn't beautiful anymore.

This was the point where I was closest to crying... I was really on the verge... but still, there was nothing. No tears. No proof.

All I was capable of doing was closing my eyes and joining the monks in chanting strange, one-syllable words that meant nothing but jibberish to me.

And when the ceremony ended and people slowly trickled out of the crematory and walked towards their cars, I tried staying there just a little longer, so that I would be one of the last ones left. It was the least I could do.