Today I would like to tell you something about the subject we all avoid like plague, because it hurts. Yes, grieving hurts and humans consistently fail at dealing with grief. It’s easy to sweep everything under the carpet, and move on, but facing the pain has to be one of the most difficult things we need to do.

We can grieve anything that meant something to us at any point in our life. We grieve our loved ones that left us always way too soon, even if they reached almost 90 years of age. I grieved my grandpa’s death for some time. Losing loved ones hurts the most. But we can also grieve people who left us when things were the hardest, we can also grieve versions of ourselves we had to leave in order to become someone better, someone kinder and someone we actually like. We can grieve even the future versions of ourselves we designed in our head, but we didn’t become them, and yet we still grieve.

It’s the most soul-crushing feeling ever. I can feel that fire burning my soul even when I write this. Grief is not something that should be taken lightly, nor it is something that we should run away from. Grief needs space and it needs respect. It also needs us to look at it and understand what it is trying to tell us in certain cases, for example, when we are grieving our own versions. Grieving loved ones, grieving a loss, requires compassion and understanding that what we are feeling is actually love and loss at the same time. Humans are facing some sort of grief almost every day, but we numb it.

There are mothers who lost their babies, there are children who lost their parents, and I came to realize that we are unfortunately getting desensitized to grief and pain. Any normal, empathic human being feels the pain of Gaza. I feel it in my bones, even when I look away and even when I don’t update myself on the current situation. I cried my heart out countless of times and if it hurts you too, it means you are human and can acknowledge someone’s pain and grief. Gaza is the prime example of our collective soul that keeps on crying, but we ignore it, we scroll and chase a new trend.

Grief is vital to us. Grief is like Pluto, it shatters you, just to build you up all over again. Grief is a visitor you hate and learn to love. You sit with your grief, and you hold hands. Cause she will hold you until you are ready. She will be there, looking at you even when you are angry, even when you try to avoid her. She will be there, sitting patiently, waiting for you to notice her. But know one thing, the more you ignore her, the more she will grow until you cannot escape her anymore. She is not scary or violent, she is kind and patient, dressed in black with long black hair and kind face. Her hands are cold but soft and she will hold you as long as you need her. Once you sit and talk to her, once you cry it out, she will leave but she will visit you again. First, she will visit every day, then she will visit every second day, then once a week, once a month, once a year and then occasionally she will visit to remind you that you are still human.

Grief is our friend. But if piled up, it can make us angry, it can make us mean, it can make us cold. Acknowledge your grief, be friends with her, make some space for her and she will be your friend forever, she will make you soft, she will make you compassionate, she will make you human again. Don’t you ever run away from her and call her a demon (“We all have our demons”). No, we don’t, we just villainized our emotions and we imprison them.

So, face your friend. She must be sitting there, waiting kindly. Tell her all about your pain.