Fragility

When Life Feels Fragile: Grieving the People Who Made It Home # When Life Feels Fragile: Grieving the People Who Made It Home There are days when I feel so fragile that even the smallest things feel heavy. Today is one of those days. I find myself thinking about Sana and wondering how many such moments she must have experienced in her own life. Moments when her thoughts were too loud, her emotions too overwhelming, and she just wanted a little respite from it all. Perhaps now, more than ever, I understand the need to quieten the mind, even if only for a little while. I understand why someone might reach for a drink or an anxiety pill, hoping to find a few moments of peace. Grief has a way of changing how you see the world. It makes you aware of how fragile life is, how little control we have, and how much we take for granted until the people who anchor us are no longer here. Losing Sana disconnected me from life in ways I still struggle to explain. The world continued moving, people continued laughing, and ordinary days continued unfolding, but something fundamental within me had changed. A part of me had gone with her. And then I lost my mother. With her passing, I felt another connection disappear. India had always been more than a country I came from. It was my childhood, my memories, my family, and the place where my story began. My mother was the living link to so much of that history. With her gone, I sometimes feel as though my home in India has disappeared too. I can return to the place, but the person who made it feel like home is no longer there. There is a particular loneliness in losing your mother, even when you are an adult with a family of your own. And there is an unimaginable loneliness in losing a child. To experience both is to feel as though the foundations beneath you have shifted twice. Today, I feel the weight of both losses. Perhaps this is why I think about Sana's struggles with even greater tenderness now. I cannot know everything she felt or the battles she fought quietly within herself. But I wish she had always known that she did not have to be strong, that she did not have to make sense of everything, and that she could have moments of fragility without feeling she had failed. I wish I could tell her that I understand a little more now. Not because I believe I know exactly what she went through, but because grief has taught me how exhausting it can be to carry pain that others cannot see. I am learning that compassion begins when we stop judging how people cope and start wondering what they might be trying to survive. Sometimes, people need professional help. Sometimes, they need someone to sit beside them. And sometimes, they need the reassurance that they are allowed to fall apart without losing the love of those around them. Today, I wish I could hold Sana again. I wish I could hold my mother, too. I wish I could return to a time when the people who made my world feel safe were still here. But grief does not offer us that return. It asks us to find our way through a world that no longer looks the same. Perhaps home is changing for me. Perhaps I must learn to carry India in my memories, my mother's voice in my heart, and Sana's presence in the way I see the world and the people who are hurting. I am not there yet. Today, I am simply fragile. I miss my daughter. I miss my mother. I miss the feeling of belonging to a world that once felt whole. And perhaps today, that is enough—to acknowledge the pain without pretending to be stronger than I feel. **For Sana, and for every young person silently struggling with their own pain: I hope you know that you do not have to earn love by being okay. You deserve compassion on the days when you cannot find your way through your own thoughts. You deserve to be held, heard, and helped.** And for those of us who remain, perhaps love means learning to offer others the tenderness we wish we could give to those we have lost. Today, I will let myself grieve. I will let myself be fragile. Because even now, after all this loss, I am still learning how to live with a heart that has loved so deeply. And Sana, my darling, you remain a part of that heart. Always. l