The Rabbit Hole

Last night, I watched Rabbit Hole, a movie about a couple navigating grief after losing their four-year-old son. I had heard about it before, but watching it now—after losing Sana—felt different. It wasn’t just a film anymore; it was a mirror, reflecting emotions I know all too well. The story follows a husband and wife, each grieving in their own way. The mother, overwhelmed by pain, struggles with the world moving on around her, while the father holds onto every little piece of their son—his drawings, his clothes, his presence in their home. He is desperate to preserve his child’s memory, as if letting go of these things would mean letting go of him. And in that moment, I realized—I am him. I, too, find myself clinging to every memory of Sana. Her clothes still hang in her closet, her shoes remain neatly lined up, untouched. I wear her jackets, her scarves, even spritz her perfume sometimes, just to feel close to her. Her handwriting is preserved in notebooks, her texts saved on my phone, her voice still alive in recordings I can’t bring myself to delete. Because what if I do? What if moving forward means leaving her behind? That is my deepest fear. Grief plays cruel tricks on the mind. There’s an irrational part of me that believes that keeping her belongings, her space, her memories exactly as they were will somehow keep her here. I know logically that isn’t true, but emotionally, it feels like an anchor—a way to hold onto her, to refuse the passage of time that threatens to take her further away from me. And yet, I also know that Sana wouldn’t want me to be trapped in grief. She would want me to live, to find joy, to celebrate the people I love. She would want me to move forward—not by forgetting her, but by carrying her with me in a way that allows me to keep living. It is a delicate balance—honoring the past while embracing the present. Some days, I manage it better than others. Other days, like today, the fear of moving forward feels suffocating. But maybe, just maybe, moving forward doesn’t mean losing her. Maybe it means keeping her love alive in new ways—in the stories I tell, in the lessons she taught me, in the way I show up for others just as she always did. Maybe she isn’t in the things I hold onto. Maybe she is in me.