Friday 10 April 2015

I - Impending Sense of Loss

She:
It's high time you recover
He:
From?
She:
From whatever that you are mourning
He:
I am sorry if I sound cruel. But you haven't lost anybody and I hope you never do. But you might never understand what I go through everyday. It's cruel, you know, to survive without somebody that meant the world to you.
She:
You know there is something much more crushing than the actual loss itself?
He:
And what would that be?
She:
The impending sense of loss
He:
Really now?
She:
Yes. The feeling of something precious slipping away from your hands. Claustrophobic. Helpless. Like you are drowning and now you are getting tired of struggling to stay afloat and the panic that hits you the exact moment when you feel lack of air for the first time.

When your loved one is battling terminal illness, a dying relationship, an-about-to-break friendship, an unnamed bond that you had grown emotionally dependent upon going sour.

Nothing is lost yet, but everything isn't the same either. Impending sense of loss. Hard hitting. You see the suffering in the eyes of the people, their difficulty in being with you and you want to set them free too but you just can't. Because you don't want to. Because you are torn. Between your own reasons to keep them with you and the relief of seeing them free.

Like an invisible burden on your soul. The possibilities floating inside your head. The what ifs. The imaginary scenarios of everything going back to the way it was before. And then the realization that they are just what you thought them to be – imaginary scenarios.

Like you have started walking on a bridge and just when you have reached the exact centre, that's when you realize that its oh-not-so-sturdy. And then you know that there is no way out because you cannot go back and cannot risk going ahead too. That's when you realize the meaning of the word 'stuck'. Stuck in a quagmire of not the loss but the impending sense of loss.



This post is written as a part of April A to Z Challenge - 2015



26 comments:

  1. Jyotsna, that was amazing - very powerful, sad, packed with emotions. A terrible place to be, and yet we can hope to get out of that feeling of being stucked...

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    1. Thank you Eli. Yes it's a terrible place to be stuck in :(

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  2. you brought to my mind a situation that I felt helpless, my sister law;s husband suffering from bone cancer in the 4th stage, doctors giving up, he was sent home, he was unable to eat, sit or sleep.. he was so restless, and we were not knowing what to do and finally decided to put him in hospice for a week where minimum treatment and care was given... watching the whole family running in circles ... too much to bear, finally he died within a week in this month.

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    1. Sad to hear about your loss Angela. It's a terrible terrible feeling :(

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  3. The writing was amazing astonishing even! It is very upsetting and reminded me the battle my auntie had with cancer. It is truly the worst feeling/situation to go through.

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    1. Thank you Lillie for appreciating. I guess almost all of us have gone through this sad feeling !!

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  4. Ouch! I know that feeling.

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  5. Impending sense of loss can be more crippling than the actual loss...u dont know when the actually loss will happen..ur not ready for it...and u r literally grieving every single day...such sad yet true words.

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  6. That's amazing and beautifully written, deep and intense. The tragedy of life well expressed Jyotsna:)

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  7. Yes, that's the worse feeling ever, the sense of loss each day burdening your soul more and the feeling that you are being sucked into a whirlwind without any escape. I don't wish it even on my worst of enemies. That last paragraph was power-packed.

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    1. I wish too that nobody goes through this feeling. Thank you Prasanna

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  8. This was so heart wrenching and meaningful.
    read my posts in the memory of my late father at http://www.poojasharmarao.blogspot.com

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  9. Disarmingly poignant. And no one can argue with the intensity of feeling.

    Yet I strongly disagree. You're comparing one tragedy of consciousness to another.

    Whether you're haunted by the singular grief of loss (a callously inadequate word if there ever was one), of "How Things Used to Be", the tremors of which hit you on a perfectly happy day (one of those you know, when you take a deep breath and almost declare "its good to be alive!"), a black sadness which sits in the corners of your heart watching every leap of joy so that it is made ever so slightly self-conscious and stunts itself.. or whether your days are underscored by this deep sense of unease, this dread which clings to you like your shirt on a humid day, slowly asphyxiating you but never quite finishing the damn job, this " impending sense of loss" - both the same sides (yes same sides - plural) of this absurd coin that is the human condition.

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  10. In one a tragedy lives in you. In the other, you live a tragedy.

    But tragic is tragic all the same.

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    1. Well.. you've conveyed your point amazingly well.. Impressive I must say. May be you have a point too. And your last line that ' tragic is tragic all the same' also says it.

      But speaking from personal experience, once the tragedy has occurred, its like a whirlpool of sadness that you are in and you know that you have to deal with it and that you have no other choice but to live with it.

      Whereas, in the other case, when you are 'expecting' the tragedy to occur, the sinking feeling is much more heavier. You know you are going to loose something and what is burdensome are the questions that haunt you.. like whether you would be able to live the tragedy, the what ifs.. the unforeseen that is waiting to just gulp you down.. you want it to stop and yet you know you can't.

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  11. Excellent post Jyotsna! What you say about the Impending sense of loss is so very true. Congrats :)
    You are welcome to check my A-Z blog posts here: http://sundarivenkatraman.blogspot.in/

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    1. Thank you for visiting Ma'am. Off to check yours :)

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  12. New subscriber. Found your blog through a mention on http://shilpaagarg.com. And saying 'howdy' from the #AtoZChallenge team of AJ's wHooligans!

    In early February 1979, my father came home early from work one day, not feeling well. That was unusual as few things could tear him away from his work responsibilities. One week later, he had a stroke, followed by heart failure the next day and he passed at the age of 47. I agree with what you say about impending sense of loss. My father's death was hard enough as it was, and we did not have the task of watching someone deteriorate over time.

    OK, going to lighten up a bit now. Excellent, thoughtful A to Z Challenge post Jyotsna!

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    1. Thank you so much for visiting Luann. And sorry to hear about your loss :(

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  13. Yes, the uncertainty is a killer, especially when we have no guarantees that those we love will survive.

    J.L. Campbell - The Character Depot | A-Z Challenge Co-Host

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  14. This was one was just amazing. The thought, the message, the depth this write up has shown is just Impressive :)

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