Category: Food For Thought

Family, Food For Thought, Inpsiration

A Weekend of Emotional Cracks

Sanjay Sabarwal

In the drudgery of the sadness, there are now some cracks of joy, laughter, a brief smile, a joyful memory of my dad and aunt. There is a slight brightening in the days when we celebrated my mom’s, father in law’s and niece’s birthday. Celebrations happen, subdued perhaps but joy comes through because our loved ones would hate so much of this sadness nonsense.

We move forward not because we have to but because the ones gone would not like us being such sour puss’s.  They were the life of the party, and would want us to behave accordingly. And so there are glimmers of lightness, along with tears, but also shared stories or creation of new intimate moments full of joy and togetherness. The weekend flew by as we celebrated some milestones like my father in law’s 65th. His joy and surprise at the party infectious, and seeing the loving happiness in my wife’s eyes as well as my sister and brother-in-law who took pains to make the event happen.

In that moment, it hit me that yes mourning is fine, but that is not the only thing to do. We get to celebrate, hold our loved ones dearly, let me know any chance we get to show them how much they are cherished. And we get better at slowing grief down. Not ignoring it, but not also not running every single moment of your life. You force new moments to put cracks in grief’s facade, and perhaps, one day, just one day, maybe, you can smile first and miss them later.

Food For Thought, Inpsiration, Journal

The Gray Life

Sanjay Sabarwal

Grief is boring. The colors around me are dimmer. I am slower. Often distracted. Unconcerned with loved ones needs and wants. Just making through the day in a daze. It’s caused damage in some relationships as the Sanjay they need is on another plain of pain and sadness. A selfish Sanjay who just looks inwards and forgets that life is moving forward without him,

Grief sucks. Continually looking at certain pictures, and replaying certain memories. I feel like an iPod on endless repeat of a song. Yet it is not satisfying but stultifying.

Grief angers. I don’t have any more words to explain to others nor do I want. There are moments I want to be left alone and others I feel suffocated in my loneliness.

Grief grays me. The color inside me feels drained and shallow. Yet I also know this self-pity has to go away. Life and Death happen. Get over it. Honor them. That’s the goal.

So I begin today vowing to be a better husband, son, brother and friend. Sitting in my room allowing grief to control me does nothing but damage me and my memory of those gone. I know they would be disappointed to see me this way. So Today, I start anew.

Family, Food For Thought, Inpsiration

A Part of Me

Sanjay Sabarwal

I sit here, looking at this blank screen, and for a while, my mind and the screen have blankness in common. Finally, the fingers move to talk about the blankness which makes no sense because it’s hard to come up with words. That’s the same with Death. It is so final, irrevocable, and the ones who are left behind to make sense of it. But what do I do with the constant heartache? I know I cannot stop living, yet each moment is now tinged with a sadness that many cannot relate to. Does death become the end and be all of me? No, but it is a part of me, and for myself it is finding ways to keep going.

I know Death is inevitable, but when it is sudden and back to back, so much of one’s life loses meaning. It is a stark reminder of how mundane your thoughts and emotions become because are continually about the same things and persons. So many lost conversations, so much left unsaid, the ones gone would not like this. Would actively discourage. However, I still walk around in a fog, going about my day with a lead heart. The ones closest aware of the pain, but unable to share it because they have their own burdens to carry.

So I pass the day alone in thoughts and pain.Wishing for yet one more day, one more chance to do it differently knowing I cannot. Regret now also a part of me. I get up, I move, I do my tasks. I engage, I laugh, I work out, I go to work, each action I perform as if life has continued yet I am fundamentally different now. There is a blankness inside me which I have no words for, but is now a part of me.

Cancer, Family, Food For Thought, Inpsiration

The Cacophony of Silence

Sanjay Sabarwal

I wake up each day this past week to the realization that my mom’s little sister, my little brother and sister’s mom, and “Masi” to so many of us has passed. Each time my eyes open,  just for a moment I feel normal until it all comes rushing back. Grief chokes me into silence, and I strain to hear joy in our house. Down the hall, I sense mom wearily turning the newspapers pages, trying to put one more painful minute behind her.  Next to me, I sense my wife move around restlessly, her wounded heart mourning for someone who treated her like a daughter way before our relationship.

The house reeks of a deep sadness that had barely begun to ease up for my dad, yet now we are now back smack in the middle of a deep longing for another loving soul gone. It is fitting that she left we say because now my dad has company and for the past decades,  Baby Maasi was my dad’s partner in crime for music, grocery shopping, the farmer’s market and really anything  that got them outdoors when many of us didn’t feel like it. They were brother and sister by marriage, and in action, they took that relationship to an inspirational level. Yet the unfairness of their death galls me. What about us? How do we pick up the pieces?

And then for a moment, I allow myself the crushing idea of “why bother? I am gonna die anyway?”  And it does feel right, to not care, to just let things be, to lay back in bed, crawl up inside the blankets and just not feel. Then images of Papa and Baby Maasi come to mind, and it hits me that although both had health problems, they lived, no thrived! They did not focus on the unfairness of life or what they couldn’t do. They lived, and ensured those around them also did to. My dad and aunt never lost an opportunity to tell me they loved me.

So I let the silence linger for a moment, I stay in bed just for a minute longer, and then I let go. I get up. I push aside the blanket. Self-pity left behind as I get up to be present, to love, to let my mom, wife and family know they are not alone in this grief. This silence is not one they get to by themselves in. I can’t take the pain away, but that doesn’t mean I allow that to be a reason not to be there.

Life and death are part of my life. It will happen. Giving up  not only dishonors their memory, it is selfish and weak. So I get up, and I need  find ways to continue their legacy not bring it down.

Food For Thought, Inpsiration

A Rough Day

Sanjay Sabarwal

Yesterday was not an easy day. It’s been over 8 months since Papa has been going, yet it still feels so raw. Mostly because I haven’t allowed myself to process my grief. It’s just easier to look at the unfairness of things, to be snippy at others at their “luck” of having dads still.

My selfishness knows no bounds when it comes to my emotions and thoughts. I buried myself in feeling sad and sorry for myself, yet it hit me as I hiked Hellman Trail yesterday that my father would have hated me this way. He was a happy-go-lucky guy who would try anything to make his loved ones smile. So not was I dishonoring his memory, I upset others with my crappy attitude.

Then a beautiful message from my wife hit me to my core, and I lived yesterday with a new sense of urgency: to not waste time and energy on things I cannot change. Then I also noticed how so many had reached out, and the most I could muster was a lame thank you. It is in times of need that I sometimes truly forget that I am never alone. I just make myself feel that way which only serves the selfish need inside me to dwell rather than take responsibility.

So each day will be a focus on less feeling sorry for myself, and then finding way to be in service to others. It’s what my father would have wanted.

Food For Thought, Inpsiration

Firsts of Many Firsts

Sanjay Sabarwal

This coming Father’s day will be my first without Papa. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t a stark reminder that I don’t have mine or that I am not one either.  For all that I do, and for my all to do lists and the wonderful moments in my life., it’s hit me that I don’t allow myself the time to sit there with my grief. It’s easier to keep moving, to keep doing, from working out to writing, to driving to the studios, to taking on new clients to planning things yet there is a deep pain that I find hard to express.

Sitting in therapy, I complained to my therapist how I get weepy at the strangest times particularly when I listen to the Rocky Soundtrack as I head to Crossfit.  As the music comes, and I pick up the speed to the gym, tears suddenly come as if I’ve opened a forgotten valve. When asked when was the last time I sat in silence, it came out that it was during that time to the gym or early mornings when I do my morning pages when it’s just me, the quiet and the screen. It is only then I allow myself the time to be with my thoughts and feelings. And most times, it is not a place I wish to be at.

Yet I also know it needs to happen. Too much stuff has gone by without me sitting with it and just FEELING. It’s easier to be doing, yet if I don’t process then I cannot move forward. So yea, this is the first Fathers day without Papa, but it’s also a first that I get to celebrate him anyway.  He doesn’t need to be around physically to be honored. He is in my heart.