What of the grief that is not ours?
Grief that pulses through our veins, throbs, and beats like an annoying little reminder- that it is there, and it is here to stay.
Grief for the people who don’t know we exist, yet we can’t imagine our existence without them.
Does such grief subsist?
It comes as a fleeting thought somewhere in the middle of the day,
Pictures on screens, memories on paper, melodies stuck in our heads – year after year after year,
Nostalgia makes the grief grow stronger –
Who knew reminiscing the past would sit so heavy in our hearts?
But it’s incidents like this that put life into perspective –
Is love only love when it is reciprocated?
Can love not emerge from gratitude, from familiarity?
If we are not to be loved back… does our love fade away?
We don’t attend their funerals,
We don’t know their families,
Yet the love persists, and all it takes is one verse from your favourite song to thrust you back to your childhood
But this time with a painful message: it’s over.
The innocence is dead,
Your idols and heroes are now real humans with real human problems,
The realisation strikes as you find yourself reading yet another headline, asking out loud,
“Would it be simpler if the love faded away with them?”
Written by Nandini Sethi