The Ache and The Answer

Sometimes grief doesn’t just arrive, it knocks on doors that were supposed to be sealed shut. When my grandfather passed away, with his absence came echoes from another time, another loss that I thought I’d outgrown.

I confused those sounds with death and it left me frozen for months. I wondered why this loss had such an effect on me. I knew it was normal to feel low after a death of a family member, but something felt… off. All I wanted to do was hug my dad. I was being pulled by the present and the past but I couldn’t figure out why. So I sunk lower. 

That was until the old door creaked open, instructing me to step through. I walked toward it, doubtful that I would find anything because this door was untouched for years. 

Once my foot crossed the doorframe, I was a little girl again. I didn’t remember this place, but there was a familiar feeling in my chest as I looked around me. The walls were cracked, covered by vines littered with roses. Beautiful, but sharp to touch. 

The little girl in me knew all about loss. She knew what grief felt like. Knew the silence of absence. Through her eyes I saw the separation of two people, and felt the hoarse throat of a baby girl calling out to her dad. She didn't understand that she was loved beyond belief. All she knew was that someone was missing. 

Thats when I knew the feeling in my chest was planted in this room. A seed of anger, confusion and sadness that only bloomed in darkness. Something telling me I wasn’t enough, clinging to me so tight I believed it.

And because that door was sealed shut, the seed flourished. So much so that echoes of influence spilled through the door as I grew up. I built fragile distant connections to protect myself and I was the only one blind to it. This little girl was so tired she had given up. 

She had gone numb.

As I walked through the room, I felt myself getting taller. I was moving through time. With each step there was a new crack, flowing whispers of anger, jealousy and hurt.

Until I walked past a crack that had been sealed. No thorns guarded this part of the wall. I traced my fingers along the smooth surface and a whisper emerged. "Do you hold any anger towards me? Honesty is okay." 

This little girl was isolated. Unseen and unheard festering in rage of being locked away, and someone wanted to hear her speak. Not who I was on the surface, but the darkest parts of me. 

There was another sealed crack beside this one. Another whisper. "Yes. I do. I'm angry."

I took a step back to see how one conversation sealed so many cracks in this wall. How a few minutes of honesty began to change everything.

I continued walking, continued growing. Hearing echoes of conversations and arguments, but watching as the honesty within them repaired old wounds.

Once I reached the end of the hallway I was grown up again. I understood why I felt this way, but this room was still in pieces. I was still in pieces. 

My chest still ached.

There was something draining me. 

I looked under my shirt and found a leech clinging to my chest. Pulling it off was easier than I expected. It hadn’t been feeding, only hiding. I looked at the leech closely to see why it was on me and what it wanted.

“The leech of abandonment.” A little girl— I said from the end of the hallway. “That’s what it is. You finally found it.” All this time I thought I was the problem, that there was something wrong with me. But this leech found me when I was low, and held on until I was strong enough to let it go. 

Younger me faded away, and so did the cracks in the wall. All the silence, the jealousy and anger. It all made sense, and it was gone. 

Making my way out of the room, I looked at the mended walls. At the cracks that once kept everything apart. That's when I knew they didn't seal, they healed. 

It wasn't perfect, but it was hard work and it was beautiful. 

I reached the doorframe again, with the leech in my hand. The leech of abandonment. It held onto so much for so long. It protected me when I was young but I as I grew I couldn't identify what it was. So I leaned into everything the leech had. It hindered my growth and nearly shattered relationships, but it kept me safe.  

The new grief opened this door for me because this was the only time I could see my past clearly. Life with a leech, and breaking the connection when it started to hurt. Because once I saw it and identified it, I was free. 

I stepped out of the room and shut the door behind me. 

And I could finally breathe.

—

When someone leaves, it doesn’t mean you are less. It means you’re learning to be more. You are not your leech. You can let go.