Grief

If there is one thing I have learned in the past four years is that happiness and grief can co-exist; something that was hard for me to wrap my head around initially as I felt guilty about feeling happiness the first couple years during certain moments in the year. I think it was the fact that I was going through moments without my brother physically present. When my cousin got married, that was tough because we all grew up together and I felt emptiness and happiness all at the same during the wedding week. There were moments when I heard my cousin say a funny joke and I thought to myself; that is exactly what Sehaj would have said. It made me feel happy that his presence was felt all around. It was then that I started to fully understand how grief and happiness can co-exist.

Another thing I have experienced is the ebbs and flows of grief. It all really just flows naturally like the ocean, the waves can sometimes hit you really hard out of nowhere and then it can be calm the next minute. I experienced the tough waves up and down during the first year when I would be driving home from work and I would get this rush of overwhelming feelings and I’d have a breakdown crying hysterically. I would try and talk to my brother out loud and just say things that were on my mind, but it was hard for me to gather my words, tears would just stream down my face.

The first year feels like a blur now when I think back to it. I do remember there being a lot of numbness, coming home to the family just eating, sitting in silence then going to sleep very early. The next day, we would all go to work again and then repeat. It was like there were no emotions for a little bit and then there would be heated arguments about how the accident happened and then all the drama at the funeral. Looking back now and reflecting on the past few years, I can see how the first year was filled with a lot of tough emotions, bottled-up anger, resentment and denial. Lots of denial of what happened and how it happened. There was a lot of blame shifting too, I remember getting into arguments with my dad and sister about how we failed to support my brother when he was struggling.

The second year I feel like was just as tough as the first or even more. After the year of firsts passed, it felt like it had been a long time since I had seen my brother physically. It was starting to actually feel real, that he was not alive anymore.

It has now been 4 years since my brother passed away. I find that now when we talk about Sehaj, there are a lot of beautiful memories that everyone shares about him; the funny stories and his amazing qualities. I love hearing his name, positive stories about him and just reminiscing all of our childhood memories. Even my dad started sharing stories of him and it makes me so happy because I felt that for the first two years, he seemed to just avoid talking about him or whenever it all came up he would get angry and make comments like “forget about him”. I hated hearing those comments; it made me angry and I would often have arguments with him.

Power in grief- this is something I am now feeling in the past year or so. I feel that I can talk about my brother’s death a lot more openly. I feel that each time I talk about it, I am processing it more and more. I want to honour Sehaj’s memory and create something meaningful and help others going through a tough time emotionally. On the third year of the anniversary, I made a small memory/sharing box and left it at the tree where the accident happened. I went back to the spot a couple of times and it was so heartwarming to read some comments that people had left. I wanted the box to be a place for the community to come and just read positive messages, leave a message or take a positive quote. I left a variety of grief quotes laminated in the box. When I went back after the winter, I noticed that it was gone and some construction had started in the area by the beach. It made me sad that someone had taken it. I am glad that at least for some time, there was some good that came from that box. People were able to connect over grief and loss. Next year, for the five year anniversary I want to create something similar and think of ways so that people will just leave it be. I wanted to ask the city if we could make a bench there in memory of my brother, that is something that has been on my mind, maybe I should inquire into that.

Grief changes relationships

I experienced this first hand. With my closest University friends, childhood friends and relatives. I was deeply hurt when my closest friends didn’t even call me when they found out that my brother had passed away. Instead, I got a text. I didn’t get follow-up texts or calls weeks later. One of my best friends at the time had her first baby on the day of my brother’s funeral, and I texted to congratulate her. She did not ask me how I was doing or ask me anything about my brother. A year later, I got a happy birthday text, I thought that was very superficial and ingenuine. It did not make sense to me back then. But lately, I have just been processing and thinking about life, death and how society responds to death. I also remember my counsellor mentioning that we have different types of friends and some are surface-level friends who you cannot deeply connect with over trauma and real things. This was what I realized. These so called “best friends” from my University days, were in fact my surface-level friends. It is often said that you truly realize who your real friends are when something tragic happens in your life. Through this, I experienced losing my friends however, I think I was meant to lose them at one point to discover that our friendship was really only superficial. When I experienced a tragedy in my life, I did not feel supported by people who I thought were my best friends. I was really hurt initially, however, now I understand that people can be uncomfortable talking about death, acknowledging it and even supporting friends can be challenging. I think it is the culture of death and grief. No one really knows how to support those grieving. There needs to be a shift in how we address death and grief. I think it should start early in schools. People think that children should not be exposed to talking about death. That is life though, death is all around us. It is inevitable. The more we shelter children from it, we are producing and shaping humans to be disconnected from their emotions.

I’ve been struggling with being kind and positive around my relatives. I have put up firm boundaries with my parents letting them know which people I refuse to engage with; the people that I feel let me down during the funeral week and months later. Along with being upset with my aunt and uncle, I feel that I grew distant from my two younger cousins whom I was pretty close with prior to my brother passing away. They were just in grades 8 and 12. I now take ownership in how I failed to stay connected to my two cousins, however, I think a big part of what pulled me away was my sister’s views on the situation. She would constantly say that the kids were old enough to ‘know better’. She would say negative things about them as if she didn’t care about her relationship with them anymore. I knew at the time that it was wrong, however, I rallied. I went along. I was a follower. I did not stand up for what I knew was right. I think I was not ready to acknowledge the reality. I let the anger take over. It clouded my judgment. Perhaps I needed to feel all the anger first in order to understand it all. I have felt like I’m letting my brother down these past few years- not being there for our little cousins. He was always the one who was so friendly with everyone and didn’t care about all the unnecessary family drama. He would have disapproved of the way things ended up happening. In the key high-school years, I feel that I failed as an older cousin to be there for my little cousins. They lost their older cousin too, they are processing and grieving as well.

Sehaj always uplifted me by saying how great it was that I tried to fix all the problems between the families and now I feel like I am doing the opposite. In the past, I used to always keep our families connected- when there were disagreements I felt like I needed to help ease the tension and have everyone talking to each other. I felt like a more positive person back then. For the past three years, I had a lot of anger and resentment inside of me. I think I am ready to let go of it. The anger. I have been ready for maybe the last year or so. I can’t have it inside me. I don’t want any of it. I want to just be positive and happy and understanding again.

Strength in grief

Within one year my dad lost his youngest child, father, mother and brother. Four of his immediate family members. I remember that year being quite a blur. We all just went to work, came home and slept early. I just remember sitting in bed, hoping to sleep so I could dream of my brother, it was hard to sleep those days so I started watching shows to help me sleep. That messed up my sleep schedule even more. I never sat down with my dad after that and months later, he said to my sister and me “Have you ever sat down with me and asked me how I am doing, you have never asked about my brother?”. It hit me, I was so focused on my own grief that I failed to check-in with my dad to see how he was doing. Following those days, I reflected a lot about what he said, and I realized that I had been taking a lot of my own trauma and projecting it onto my current situation. After my brother passed away, I felt it was challenging to talk with my dad about him and what had happened because I was not able to communicate with him in a way that made sense to me. I think my dad processed his death through music and faith. He emerged himself in what he knew best and all the things he valued in the faith. I think what my dad was trying to teach me was that in grief, everyone processes differently and people may not know how to connect with the people that have been directly affected by death.

I think I have a lot to learn from my dad, he still interacts with his cousin (my uncle) who I grew to genuinely despise over the past four years. My dad always tells me that it is not healthy to have so much hate. I always felt that too, I used to always be so positive. Yet, now I cannot help but feel a lot of anger towards the relatives who have been dismissive to my family over the years. I want to get back to being more positive and be genuinely understanding of others situation too. It’s interesting because I still believe that all humans deep down are good, and mean well however I think that its life occurrences that trigger certain behaviour in people. Yet, I am still finding it so challenging to forgive these relatives. I think the biggest factor is that they act like everything is okay, and any time we interact, it is very superficial and we have surface-level conversations. I think I was most hurt that they didn’t talk about my brother after his death. I think I justified being okay with losing my relatives as I kept telling myself that I didn’t want to spend my energy around people who I feel I no longer have a deeper connection with anymore. However, lately I have been feeling that I want to forgive and feel genuine care for them again. I want them all to be happy. I just wish I didn’t have to see them at family events or feel forced to go to their events. It is also tough for my mom and I think that she is so strong for still seeing her family yet always feeling awkward that her own children do not interact with her entire family anymore. Honestly, it is just unfortunate that it all came to this, how relationships can became so strained. The one factor is; communication. The lack of communicating openly and uncomfortable yet real conversations of what happened during the funeral week.

Sehaj

If I could describe my brother in two words it would be uplifting and contagious-energy. The first night we spent at the house without my brother, all of our closest friends and family slept over. We stayed up the entire night just laughing and sharing memories. I just remember hysterically laughing to the point where I look back now and I realize that it was a defense mechanism. Although, it is interesting how the best quality of my brother was what helped me get through that first initial week; laughter. I remember even laughing and smiling during the funeral. It didn’t make sense to my sister and me, we thought people would think we were ‘crazy’ yet in a weird way, perhaps that is what Sehaj intended. He wanted us to laugh, smile and be silly because he spent his whole life just trying to make others laugh. He always felt so much joy in making others laugh. I read somewhere that sometimes the people that are the saddest deep down try to uplift and make others laugh because they know how it feels to be so sad and they don’t wish that feeling upon anyone. As hard as it is to acknowledge that, I think my brother may have felt that too.. at least when he was feeling down.