GRIEF

Grief is a strange thing. It manifests itself so differently in each individual it touches. 

I lost my beloved Mama, my grandmother who raised me, very suddenly on March 23. Mercifully, she went painlessly and peacefully. Even though I'm still in a world of hurt at having lost her so quickly, I'm thankful that at least this pain is felt by us at having lost her, rather than have her take on any physical suffering at all. 

At the funeral, I didn't have any appetite at all for the first 7 days after we lost her. I couldn't shake the shock - I couldn't eat, sleep evaded me and it was as if this world lost its color and I was rudely robbed of all my senses. And then I swung the other way for 4 days and began to eat my emotions, cramming in copious amounts of carbs (and not the good kind) and comfort food, starting the crazy binge cycle of yore that I only know too well. I didn't want to feel the full extent of the pain that was eating away at me inside and I chose to seek solace in food, in a bid to numb my emotions.

We all know how that sort of thing turns out. You feel nothing, maybe even euphoria in the moments you're stuffing yourself, but the void is still gaping and at the end of it all, you're left feeling as devastated as you were before, and this time, you can add guilt and shame into the equation too. Nothing will have changed. 

But this time, I'm going to be kinder to myself. I've just been through the absolute worst and most painful 2 weeks of my life. The binges happened; I accept it and take responsibility for having slipped up and gone back to my bingeing habits. But I can't change anything and I know that these old habits and tendencies don't just disappear over 9 weeks; it will take time and real effort to overcome it fully. I'm still learning, still trying, and all I need to do now is just to jump straight back into the program. My commitment hasn't changed; I just need to channel myself back to my focus - which is to reclaim balance and be accountable for my own health. This is what my Mama would have wanted me to do.

I watched Wind River a few days after the funeral and there was a message from a father who had lost his daughter a few years ago to another dad who tragically, had found himself in the same situation. His words ring so true:

"I got good news and bad news. Bad news is you'll never be the same. You'll never be whole. Ever. What was taken from you can't be replaced. Now the good news: as soon as you accept that, as soon as you let yourself suffer, allow yourself to grieve, you'll be able to visit her in your mind and remember all the joy she gave you. All the love she knew. Right now, you don't even have that... that's what not accepting this will rob from you. If you shy from the pain of it, then you rob yourself of every memory of her. Every one. From her first step to her last smile; you'll kill them all. Take the pain, take the pain. It's the only way to keep her with you."

Such true words. I need to allow myself to feel all of this, no matter how painful it is. Numbing it with food or anything else is not a solution that will steer me toward preserving the memory of my Mama, or trying to heal. 

I'm going to continue to give myself time and space to heal as I try to come to terms with losing her. The husband and I had a good 4 days in Ishigaki, a beautiful island in Okinawa prefecture, over the Easter holiday right after the funeral, and it was the perfect place for me to be in, right then and there.

I wrote this on the second day we were there:

The Okinawan island of Ishigaki is truly an unfiltered paradise, where blue green waters run clear ashore, where imperfectly perfect rocky cliffs cut into the wide azure expanse of sky, where life slows down to a patient trot as it should, and where I find a most fitting place to begin to heal from the grief of losing my beloved grandma, my Mama. Today, I sat looking out at the East China Sea, perched atop a rocky peak at Uganzaki Point — the westernmost tip of the island — and talked to her for a bit. What I got in reply was the first seedling of peace nestling in my chest all week, where I know it will someday blossom again as my Mama looks down upon me with her huge smile — her signature smile — and gently nudges me to never forget that she is always, always with me.

I'm going to find my strength again, I'm going to steer myself toward my goals once more and I'm going to do you proud, Mama, until we meet again.

Mama, I love you with everything I have. 

Leong Moon Keun  

January 20, 1931 - March 23, 2018