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This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UPR chapter.

Pardon my French, but grief is a b*tch.

No matter what it’s directed at or what time it is, grief is a feeling that drowns out any common sense. Blocking out reason, logic, and objectivity, grieving is a volatile embrace that sinks roots that may never dissipate.

Every day of every week of every year, there’s a point in time when grief gathers its things for someone, knocks on their door without call, and waterboards them with despair.

It does not favor, nor does it pardon.

You could grieve something or someone even when they’re alive, in flesh and bone, one call away, or six feet under.

Eternally wrecked by the calls never returned, letters unsent, birthday parties missed, holidays that reverberate in absences, I, too, am no stranger to grief’s inevitable presence.

On this white page, soon to be filled with a eulogy to the past, there will be a testament to my own experience, with no reason or cause other than to be a virtual hug to myself and to any reader who may need it. During holidays, grief feels especially heavy and hard to deal with, moments that should be filled with glee, excitement, and progression instead lead with a heavy heart and distance.

On the 31st of October in 2020, my grandmother passed away
 And with her, the glue that held the sanity and sanctity that was left inside my family officially faded. Denial reared its head and sprinkled its cruel chaos around. Meanwhile, there was the pandemic happening, which made it ten times worse, in my humble opinion. A collective of grievances all around the world, and to us, it all came down to one living soul, crushing us as she couldn’t get up or say her witty catch phrases anymore.

Norma Haydee passed the day of All Hallows Eve.

She had been waltzing with Alzheimer’s disease and cancer, slowly but surely deteriorating, the vision of one of my great pillars, my caregiver, the mother of my mother slowly losing herself to things she could not control. My family lost her before she physically left this plane of existence, and that will always be something that moves and shapes our dynamic. She was the infrastructure of what tied us together, not only by blood but by an active choice of unity; and after her, the glue eroded into tiny glimpses of what used to be solid siblinghood or family values. ‘Cause the tricky thing is you don’t only lose one single thing in the process of death, but a variety; there is a rebirth, and grief has a way of shelling out the people it brushes by to prepare you for what’s to come—we were not exempt from those consequences.

To add insult to injury, or maybe peace to the unsettled. 

That’s kind of poetic, if you ask me. A full moon with the veil between our “main” world and whatever world there may be on the other side, grieving is a step into understanding  our own mortality. I often find myself in a state of wondering why it hurt so much, beyond the emotional connections we hold and physical attachments. What makes losing someone, in this case to death, so mortifyingly painful? As this piece is written, memories flood me, melancholy oozing from my fingertips onto the keyboard, and a recollection of a piece of literature that subconsciously aided me through my own process surfaces. In La Dama del Alba, a play by Alejandro Casona, there is a character who is the personification of death and I’ll paraphrase what she points out in reference to the inconsolable fear and pain we feel for those that pass. As she wonders why we as humans fear so much for the lives we barely appreciate and run through, the grandfather in the story points out that it is because of “not knowing” what awaits after we permanently close our eyes and rest. Death answers: “The same happens when the trip is the other way around, that is why babies cry when they’re born.” There is nothing certain in this life, and that is the biggest motivation for us to live joyfully. Babies are brought into this world mortified of living, so they cry and fuss and inadvertently try to not live, while on the other end, we are so afraid of dying that we withhold ourselves from living.

Even after that, I have tried to get into the moody spirit of goblins, ghouls, and skimpy costumes, but it just circles back to an uneasiness that lies in the back of my head. It’s as if I would disgrace the memory of my loved one by enjoying this day when I also know that the date is an anchor for remembrance that happens like clockwork.

I don’t know when it may be that the pressure of the guilt for things that were left unsaid, hugs left to give, “I miss you’s” left on the tips of tongues, rendered to just exist with the knowledge that was bestowed upon the experience, and the melancholy roped into the memories will be lifted. Maybe next year (or maybe in the next 4 years) I won’t feel as haunted. 

Maybe neither will you, the reader who reads me and finds some sort of meaning in my words. 

Perhaps tomorrow a butterfly will flap its wings on its journey as it passes by, you will think of them, and some peace will wash over you.

That is the joy of the unknown.

Arianys Ramos Soto is a writer for Her Campus at UPR chapter. She will be writing articles in hopes that when others read they might feel enlightened, relieved, seen, or heard. Putting deciphering girlhood, fashion forward, heavy hitter life experiences, and music as main topics. They’re an English Literature Major at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus. As a freshly published writer on the Her Campus team, she’s just getting her sea legs in this world. Creating or helping to shape certain visions and content, be it audio-visual or written, for peers, friends, and family is what is behind her drive to strive for new learning opportunities. With a niche liking of French music and an obsession with Pinterest boards with hyper specific Spotify playlists to match, Arianys loves to write and read (shocker). They spend their time reading more on the end of philosophical and semi autobiographical works, but are not exempt from the occasional dramatic fiction, even fan written, and when that’s not the case she’s frantically looking for order in between college life.