Orphans

31

"You can love someone so much, but you can never love people as much as you can miss them."
- John Green

Two months after her death, Eli and Nadi have to go back to work.

Nadi watches a young woman being pushed on a wheelchair. She had been brought in just in time to prevent her suicide attempt. Nadi stares at her for a long time before going into her office.

As the director, it meant more paperwork, suddenly the pile of all the files on her desk make her feel as if she's drowning.

The bland white walls, the smell of disinfectant all over. She feels like she's starting to suffocate.

Kubler-Ross describes five stages of grief.

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

But there are times when one does not move from one stage to another, they remain in one stage for the rest of their life. To live in denial, or anger or bargaining or depressed or in acceptance. And sometimes one can reach the acceptance stage, only to have a setback and be angry all over again, or be in denial all over again.

It is safe then to say that sometimes grief is an endless cycle.

The house feels emptier than ever with Eli and Nadi at work. It's just her- D and Coffee. Sometimes the house helps who come three times a week to do some cleaning and laundry.

D spends most of her time in the garden, next to Ana's grave. She will sit there drinking coffee with Coffee next to her, sometimes the puppy wandering around the large yard. Sometimes she just sits there reading a book. Telling Ana about some pictures she took or something funny Eli and Nadi did.

Even as she walks, Eli feels that a part of her is dead, died the day Ana passed away. And not burying herself in work or stealing greedy capitalist' money nor travelling to Spain could fill the void inside of her. Nothing at all...

It's extremely hard on all of them. And until you have lost someone who means the world to you, you can never really understand grief. It's a lifelong pain that you live with.

Some days are better than others, but sometimes it catches you in the most random fleeting moments.

Nadi is laughing with colleagues at the break room and suddenly she finds herself crying. She's in her office and a woman who looks like Ana passes by her window, making her heart stop for a second.

D is chopping some vegetables, and she finds herself saying "pass me the parsley love..." but then she remembers she cooks alone now... Ana is not there. The silence inside the house.

Eli staring at the love seat where Ana and Nadi used to sit while Nadi nursed. Her scent. Eli's shirts and tees that no longer went missing from Ana who liked wearing them... And oh how much she loved seeing her wearing her clothes...

That is grief.

They are in the living room watching a new queer show on TV.

"I'm tired of working at the hospital... Of being a doctor... The director... Whatever... I want to quit..." Nadi blurts out.

D stares at her in shock.

Eli simply looking at her.

"Are you sure?" D asks.

"Yeah... I'm tired."

"Well you should do it then. It makes you miserable anyway..." Eli says.

"But then what will I do?" Nadi asks.

"You could do anything... You are a creative person. You could start painting... Learn make up and do it professionally- you love that kind of stuff..." D tells her.