Repression

this entire journey has been real tough. I remember feeling so overwhelmed with grief a week after the funeral, the silence that greets you in the living room or in her room is deafening. the absence of the sound of her wedding ring tapping agains the glass table or on the staircase railings as she climbs up the stairs, or the shuffling of her feet in her slippers as she gets around the house. no more “have you eaten your dinner yet?” “take things easy, surrender everything to god.” and the many other reminders.

the emptiness at home was but a faint echo of the dullness and emptiness in my heart.

it overwhelmed me to the point that i had half the mind to withdraw from school. i had no room in my heart and spirit to sit in lectures, let alone handle the immense amount of workload and pressures faced in school – group work where group mates seemed to rely on me for all the ideas; oral presentations and poster looming ahead; the ridiculous amounts of chemical analytical principles, dosage form design theories and statistical concepts to swallow – they were literately the last thing on my mind. and ironically, the more immediate and pressing issues to be handled. and with each passing day of that week, my heart ached more and more. it manifested as a deep sunken pain on my chest and my back, and with each passing day, my pain grew worse.

that thursday night, my mom called my bluff, and the walls came tumbling. “you’re feeling real horrible now cause you can’t stand her absence at home right?” tears flowed, and my heart simply broke. my dad sort of scolded me that night. he said that i have to be stronger than this. my parents said its either i leave school for good or carry on with school. that was the night the lord sort of gave me my wake up call – i have to press on an finish what i started.

but yet, it wasnt easy, it was an uphill battle. i had alot to study and do. it was relentless and yet my focus wasn’t there at all times. physically, mentally and emotionally, i was fatigued. and it didnt help that i had some classmates whom in trying to encourage me, put me down instead (sigh, clearly, the lesson on empathetic communication has failed from SP1203). and when exams drew closer, as the tensions mounted, it became even harder.

i was fighting a two way battle. one against my own exam stress and expectations and yet the other was the emotions of grief i had to face as i studied. there were so many times, as i studied, that my mind would easily drift back to memories of my time with my grandma or of how things would be like had my grandma still been around. my focus was all over the place, things werent easy. there were a couple of times that i teared or broke down even in the midst of studying. the silence at home as i studied was yet again amplified by the battles in my heart. but yet again i knew that the exams were repressing how i truly am feeling. and when i finished my papers on the 25th, the usual post exam highs were much lower than usual and the journey home after a movie and night out with my friends was exceptionally difficult. i found myself dragging my feet returning home. the academic load repressed my emotions during the school term and now, i have got to be careful not to repress this grief with games, tv shows and what not; but to take time each day to reflect on everything and put it at the foot of the cross.

i hope to be able to document every single memory of the time spent with my grandma.

yet in all of this, had i never known the lord – had i never known his love, his grace and his purposes in my life – i would have easily just given up on life. thank you lord for sustaining me.