When I was 24 my grandmother passed away. It was the first time I lost someone close. Although my grandfathers had passed away years before, I was either too young to grieve or not as close to my maternal grandfather to feel a big difference in my life. My grandmother, on the other hand, was very close to me. I lived in the same house with her all my life except a few years when I studied and worked abroad.
The pain of losing a loved one is very different from physical pain. It is an empty hollow feeling when this person who has always been present in your life is suddenly missing. It then turns into a hopeless scary feeling when you realize this is now reality; there is no turning back, no second chance, no postponing. There might be regrets and they are the worst. My grandmother died because of a stroke. She was hospitalized for only a few days before she passed away. For weeks afterwards, I thought of what could have been. I wished I had spent more time with her. There were a lot of “if only”.