Reading takes away the pain, allowing myself to delve into different worlds and continues to make my heart beat again.
Reading for me, is a silent plea — my safe haven, where I don’t have to think about my reality.
I don’t like to talk about grief. It’s the one thing I can’t bring myself to talk about, but maybe, after so long I can take the courage and talk about this on this coloured webpage.
I first witnessed grief in my father’s eyes as we cremated my grandad in 2008, the big fat droplets rolling down his cheeks as if they had been held in for years. I was still young and the relationship with my grandad hadn’t been close, but seeing my dad hopelessly cry next to a glass window, struck a thorn to my side. The funeral was long, we spent almost a week folding up gold and silver rice paper to send it up to the heavens as an offering.
My world first crumbled in 2015, during GCSEs when my uncle (mum’s youngest brother) passed away. I couldn’t attend the funeral an ocean away because of exams, that broke me. It happened to be Christmas, I remember sitting in Chitose Airport waiting to board a flight back home upon hearing the news that he passed away. When we saw him in the morgue, his hands were cold and the air smelled musty. Dad cried the hardest. Following the next couple of years after his passing, every single time I visited the temple where he’s kept — I’d cry. (I still cry, even today)
I had been finishing up my internship in Canada when I received a call from my cousin that our grandma passed away. I had around 2 weeks left in Canada, and the last time I had seen her was 6 months prior. During covid, her health deteriorated rapidly. She would haul herself in her apartment, and would rarely go downstairs to play mahjong with the grannies in her building. I think she felt really lonely. I attended her funeral at the end of April this year. After years of not seeing extended family due to covid, we finally gathered together to mourn. I couldn’t cry.
Around mid-June, I applied for a permanent job position. On the day they accepted me as part of their team, I received news from my dad that our uncle suddenly passed away the night before. You could hear my heart thud. We had just seen each other in grandma’s funeral! My head felt light, the tingles in my feet spread throughout my body. It was hard to wrap my head around what I had just been told. That’s where I fell apart, the tears that had been suppressed in April resurfaced and broke free. And just like that, the news about my future job role meant nothing to me. That was the day, tears streamed down my face in front of my dad for the first time in years.
My heart ached. Thankfully, I had work to keep me sane. Dad and I kept to ourselves in our own rooms to grieve. He went on a trip to Tokyo with his friends a few days later to put his mind off it. Mum went to Europe with her friends a few days before. And I painstakingly waited for both mum and dad to come home, to bring some life back into the house.
My head was working on overdrive, all the nerves and the fear of abandonment growing as each day passed. I was stressed, sleep deprived and grieving. It was like a wave of relief seeing my parents walk through the front door unscathed.
“Everything in life is fleeting.”
Although I very much agree with that sentence, I did not want to go through another change right after one another — again. I’d probably lose myself right then and there.
I took the liberty to engross myself into books, page after page, book after book, soon enough, I found myself investing in a Kindle to soothe my broken soul. I have completely obliterated my 2023 Goodreads Reading Challenge, which is perfectly fine. Although as much as I would like to say that reading is healthy, I’m pretty sure it has turned into an unhealthy addiction.
But as for now, getting through each day is already a milestone. I will continue to learn my life lessons. I just need something to anchor me, so be it — books.
