On Grief

A few days ago, I lost my first and oldest cat to an accident.

Years ago, K saw Nagma¹ abandoned on the streets of Malleshwaram and picked her up. Both she and I were not really cat people, but eventually became so. Over the years, Nagma became a part of our lives, our family and we developed a special bond.

It is probably a sign of privilege that I really did not experience any major sense of loss or grief until my 30s. A few years ago, K and I parted ways after 12 years (including few years of marriage towards the end) and that was painful. A lot of things from that time are unclear to me even today. But I’d just see random flashbacks of our life together for months. With time these went away, as I worked towards moving on emotionally.

Now, with Nagma’s passing away, I found myself in a similar situation once again. Memories of having Nagma in our life - all beautiful ones, but now they hurt too. It will take time, of course, probably a long long time.

As we took time to grieve, I realised there was a pattern to how I processed grief. For me, it was experiencing good and bad memories, again and again, slowly, and that was the only thing that helped. With time, the mind grew more and more familiar with that sense of loss, almost growing around the grief², as it should. What I find interesting is that, this experience of a sense of loss happened very late in my life.

I remember not feeling anything like a major sense of loss, on learning the news of my paternal and maternal grandmother passing away in my teens³. Maybe it was because I was too young to understand what their deaths really meant. Or perhaps, I had not developed a close relationship with them since I only saw them for a few weeks every year during summer vacations at school. I think I just never developed that emotional side and empathy early on in life.

But in the last few years, especially since the divorce, I think I now understand the sense of loss much better. Also, being a cat dad to my other two cats (Ruhi and Suruli) added to a building up that muscle. At the same time, a deep, beautiful relationship developed with Y⁴ and a few other folks that broadly are my friends and family. In a letter I wrote some time ago, I had noted how people are often proud of their country of birth, religion, family, gender - all things which were just stochastic accidents. For me, things, decisions and relationships - anything that I actively chose are a bit more special than the ones that were just there from before.

As a young adult, I learned the vocabulary of life with very little understanding of the underlying sentiment. It is only in my 30s that I have come to somewhat understand it. Why did it take me so long to get here? I don’t really know. But the important thing is that, I now realise not to be too harsh on myself or others about this. I think we are not defined by the events that occur in our life, the decisions we take or the circumstances we find ourselves in. But we are defined by how we respond to them. These days, I think I may have unlocked a superpower of emotional understanding in the last few years.

I happy-cried watching Phool go back home in Laapata Ladies, found Manju’s wise words relatable and Jaya’s will to be independent very much inspiring. Not just movies, when Y was getting married, he would discuss how he was thinking about it, and I would ask clarifying questions or offer advice if he needed it. I cried when I saw him off at the airport and, months later, felt a surge of warmth at his home while spending time with his family—whom I now think of as my own. (I also happy-sad cried on the train ride back.)

It’s not just a simple happy-sad duality. There is a wide range of emotions that I have realised I feel these days (that I can identify and note down thanks to the How We Feel project and app⁵). And perhaps I’m somewhere between the end of the ‘growing up’ phase and starting of the ‘growing old’ phase. And so, as is the nature of life, grief is also a part of this, along with love, awe, disappointment, sadness and a mix of other emotions.

While I’m still unsure, I suspect this delayed understanding of the emotional side of life, mostly came from unfamiliarity. So when Y told me that he and his wife plan to have kids someday, my suggestion was to consider also having a pet grow up along with the kid. Maybe having pets, sharing love with them, taking their responsibility and grieving their loss might help the kid realise the texture of emotions, something that took me 30-ish years?

(In loving memory of Nagma, the sassiest, goofiest, most beautiful cat in the world that I have known, the most Calico that Calico-ed, you will be missed and loved. Until we meet on the other side, goodbye little one)