I'm Sorry For Your Loss

Megan Gizinski | Editor

Photo Credit: Thiago Matos via Pexels

“I’m sorry for your loss.” As my world got overturned, I saw that phrase robotically plastered across every social media platform.

Yet, my phone calls remained unanswered, and when I tried to return to normalcy after two weeks of psychological ping pong, my presence made people seem as if they themselves had seen a ghost.

Death is inevitable; however, it was if though the mere mention of it burdened the people I wanted to talk to most by sucking the life out of the air.

So, I went into autopilot mode and apologized for any accidental tears. “Laugh,” my brain would cue my mouth after it registered a joke.

Sometimes I would feel okay. I would feel angry. I would feel bad if I did not feel bad. Less talked about than death itself, it seems, is the horrible feeling of relief that accompanies the grief from someone you cherished so deeply, but made your world feel like something to run from. 

It has been a year now, and I have picked up the habit of dodging discussions of you. Your memory continues to hit me at the strangest of moments, like the time I grabbed an everything bagel– your favorite– out of the kitchen cupboard and wept. I still grapple with the fact that I enjoy the silence, and as I post your one-year memorial photos, my phone is lit with a single notification that reads, “I’m sorry for your loss.”