In Memory of Christina: How Love Can Endure Through Grief
Carrying the Fire
As some of you who have followed this Substack know, I sometimes write personal reflections. Today is one of those days. This is not written for pity, but from the fatigue that follows long emotional struggle. From being cast as a scapegoat since childhood. From bullying, exclusion, and the burden of being unseen. From the deaths of friends and strangers alike, fifteen in a flood, a childhood friend (Renata), and recently, three people I cared about. And one in particular, Christina, whose absence still echoes.
A Glimmer of Warmth: Christina and the Grief of Her Loss
It just makes me wonder sometimes, if all there is to my life would be hardship. Last year I had met Christina, who also in her past life went through a lot. I felt she could understand me, and actually would have cared about me, despite her own struggles. That she could be one of the first people to truly care about me in a way that went beyond mere friendliness. To actually see me. Yet her absence still weighs on me. As she was like a warm fire in a sea of cold. I had for most of my life longed for someone to see me, to care, to be able to not be strong all the time anymore. Knowing we can cry and be, and no one has to be a ghost mommy. Yet since her absence, what once felt like a fire melting away the frozenness of life, only left a distant lingering warmth. Something I want to hold onto. As it is something I had never had ever in my life before that. However it makes the grief I feel about her loss, much more complicated. I never had friends IRL, or experiences that people normally have. Most of my life has been one of emotional and social isolation, next to self-reliance.
Grieving the Absence of Connection
And I am not only grieving her, but also grieving the lack of relational warmth and love within my life. I do try to find make new friends. And I actually have made a new friend recently. I even met one girl that I connected with. Yet getting back in contact with her seems to be at the moment rather difficult. Though I do also know that I can only ever be my own saviour, as there is no one else that can. I am both the one who was cast out, and the one who can redeem myself, through feeling through the pain I carry. To actually feel it, and sit with it. A part of me does wish for someone to sit with me and care, yet I also know that sometimes in life, one has to cry and grief alone. As being strong does not mean to repress feelings, but about feeling them. To allow oneself to be vulnerable, even if just alone with my plushie for now.
The Nature of Hope and Suffering
Yet I do know, that despite the uncertainty of my life and future, this too will pass. Even if it remains such, with the current difficulties, despite the good, in a more precarious state for the coming time. Eventually it will get better, in this life, or the next. Yet at the same time, the moments of hope, for something good to happen do hurt. As such hope awakens the longing for it to come to pass, yet hope is the root of suffering. This does not mean to give up on life, but to focus on the moment. To accept the situation for what it is, and do what one can. If something good arises cherish it, then if it passes once more, then one has enjoyed it.
I could now say that my life is tragic, or talk about who or what is to blame. To create a narrative about it. Beyond the mere experience of what happened. Yet the narratives about it, only lead to more suffering. It takes the mind from the present, and pulls it into endless rumination about circumstances that have past, and keeps one in a space of intellectualisation. Instead of feeling the weight of it, and let it truly pass through. To feel the experience of it somatically and emotionally, not just through the mind. As this is what actually allows one to process it. It is why I write these type of articles at time to connect to the experience, whilst I listen to music. For I know one thing, as long as my eyes can fill with tears, and my heart can feel, I still can love.
A Tribute to Christina
I want to dedicate this article to Christina whose soul found rest in Elysium. She, too, carried the weight of emotional solitude for much of her life, not because she was unloved, but because few ever truly saw the depth of her heart. And yet, despite the silence she often had to endure, she became a quiet light in the lives of others. Even in her own darkness, she extended warmth, kindness, and presence, not because it was easy, but because she knew what it meant to go without it. In a world that often rewards performance, she remained real, raw, tender, honest.
This is for her. For the light she was, and the light she still is for me. And if nothing else remains, let this be what endures: that I stayed true to the love she awakened in me, and carried it onward, even when she could no longer.