I have begun thinking about loss and grief, and coping with grief, a lot in the last one year. Also, about acceptance, and coming to terms with grief. It isn’t that one doesn’t misses the person who is gone (in my case, my father) , one does intensely. But, the death was natural, the natural destination of a life well lived. He went surrounded by loved ones, with memories of a, more or less, happiness and laughter filled life, and today it is possible to remember him with a smile. In a way, acceptance is also because you expect your parents to precede you in death. It is the natural way of things.

I have often wondered, at the kind of grief that one has to cope with, if it is a parent mourning the loss of their child. It is not really the natural order of things.  Many years ago, i had written about putrashoka, the grief one feels at the loss of a child. There are many kinds of losses, and many kinds of grief.

Two days ago, a person I knew and worked with, not even 30 years old died. At that age, it can only be an unexpected death. My heart goes out to her parents. What does one even say at a time like this.