Notes on Grief

3 min readFeb 25, 2024

I write this with the knowledge that my grief is still very raw. I haven’t been able to access a therapist and perhaps this shape shifting creature called grief that now lives in my heart and body will forever make it hard to breath and experience joy. I do not know what form this will take, but I do know that somethings have helped me function as a human being.

I lost my brother to alcohol addiction and depression on 20th January 2024. It is a grief that most people cannot imagine (neither had I), and should not have to experience. There is the grief of losing a brother, someone you knew beyond their addiction, and then there is the pain of watching your parents go through it. It’s as though the life has been sucked out of my family. I write this because I know the one thing that has helped me through the last few weeks has been reading, reading about all those who have lost their loved ones to addiction, in knowing that I am not alone. I have collated a few of the stories I read below under resources. I cannot recommend the writings by Lauren Davis enough to understand how complicated and all encompassing both addiction and the grief of losing someone so close to you. I’ve heard podcasts after podcasts on grief, to understand the science behind it, to learn the language of it and to know that I am not alone. I’ve linked to some of these too. Grief can be lonely, it’s one of the most isolating experience I have been through. Talking to B has helped, but I understand the burden it places on him.

The other thing that helped me is writing, I have tried to write in a journal every couple of days, to both cry through my writings and just let it out.

Then there is the banality the logistics of death, as I call it. The logistics of death are as complicated as anything else, it’s the run around to get a death certificate, the paperwork to get all the finances sorted, the paperwork to make sure your parents at least don’t feel like their son lived in vain.

There are times in your life that test you, they test who you are and who you can be. They will either make or break you. This truly for me is one of those times. I have turned as much to spirituality as I have to practicality. Conceptually, I have always understood mortality. I have understood and appreciated how death is the only inevitable outcome of life, but not before now have I understood it in all it’s darkness.

I also walk a lot, on any given day I aimlessly ramble for 10 to 12 kms each day. I tire myself out physically in the hope that it will give me peace mentally. I see the world move about just like it did before it changed for us forever. Nothing stops, no one stops. That is life too.

I hope this helps someone else who is going through hard times.

Resources:

7. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/notes-on-grief

8. Book: https://www.amazon.in/Grief-Observed-Collected-Letters-Lewis/dp/0060652381

9. r/lastimages : https://www.reddit.com/r/lastimages/search/?q=alcoholism&type=link&cId=9436b8f9-c243-4822-8580-ae5398b8441d&iId=116c1076-8109-4fcc-8420-d7e8797afa76, I had shared this with him on Oct 13th 2022 https://www.reddit.com/r/lastimages/comments/16h528j/my_sister_6_days_before_she_succumbed_to/ months before I would take his last picture with me in a hospital bed. I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a premonition about his health that day.

10. Anderson Coopers podcast on Grief, All There Is: https://open.spotify.com/show/4fm93OGs4upQbKv8hngvmH

11. Huberman on grief: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzOvi0Aa2EA

Notes on Grief

Written by Shubha A T