People offer the comfort of saying that loss is an inherent part of living. Yet, conversations about grief remain hushed as if it’s too unsafe to reveal.

So, I held my tears at bay. I threw myself to work, hoping to hide them behind the guise of productivity. I put a facade, one I almost convinced myself to be true, when I went to class. Swept by the daily grind, I was too exhausted to think, too distracted to feel.

The truth is, I did not know where to place my anger when I grasped the most mundane and painfully simple fact that the world does not stop, and I want to beg not yet.

But the day went on.

Undas as a time of remembrance

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Filipinos honor their departed loved ones during Undas or All Souls’ Day. Visiting the cemetery is always a feast with the family. With the faint weight of sleep still in my eyes, I hear the kitchen stir to life at dawn. The clatter and the sharp hiss of oil on a hot pan announce the commencement of my family’s annual routine. I can already guess a few of the menu: neatly layered sandwiches with ham, our faithful go-to baon, or egg sandos with creamy and sweet dressing. These staples never miss.

My family prepares early to beat the crowd, giving us more time to settle in—and I’m not saying it’s so my siblings and I can tour the lined tents of food stalls throughout the day.

Umbrellas and tents blanket the cemetery. At night, flickering candles cast their golden hue far and wide. Meanwhile, others who cannot visit their loved ones, light a candle at the doors of their home to guide their loved ones to peace.

And in this solemn expression, when laughter mingles with prayers and aches, when people slow down to spend time with family, it creates a space for feelings of grief to seep through and resurface. Be it a conscious or unknowing choice, these emotions are suppressed to make way for the unforgiving reality of having to brave the next day to fulfill responsibilities.

The months leading up to the dawn of November were busy and marked by the end of exams, making the break a well-deserved rest I looked forward to. But in that quiet pause, I was forced to confront what was missing.

The resurgence of grief

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The Undas break made me feel restless as the stillness felt foreign, almost uncomfortable after months of being accustomed to routine. I grew numb from the rush of day-to-day life; each task and deadline blurred into the next, leaving no pause for feeling. So during the break, it was a force of habit for me to reach for a distraction—anything to halt the pace of my mind was running.

Keeping ourselves busy to avoid confronting grief is a distraction to make it through the day. We attempt to impose forgetfulness as a diversion to cope, serving as an anxious avoidance to steer clear of paralyzing grief. This is the reason I am quick to occupy my time in fear that if I sit still for a moment, everything will come rushing back and I won’t be able to stand back up.

This numbness—broken by the vulnerability of remembering—summoned an intense wave of emotions that caught me off guard. In the stillness of the break, grief crept in. The vulnerability of remembering faces and voices now gone washed over me in a suffocating wave so powerful that it left me winded.

“It comes in waves,” we often hear people say, affirming grief as unpredictable and a never-ending process of steeling oneself and collapsing in paroxysms.

I was enjoying dinner at the round table with my family, but in a snap, I felt a lump in my throat and a warm sting in my eyes, as I froze staring blankly at the unoccupied seat by someone I wish to see most. Without warning, I felt the stark emptiness and expansion of the room. The clink of metal cutlery on porcelain echoed louder than whose laughter I remember. Suddenly teetering on a tightrope between breaking from the frozen stillness of trance and being pulled by the weight of the absence, the air grew thick of mourning in a celebratory feast.

In a fleeting instant that happiness brushes a moment, there will be a pang of hurt. It lingers in the vacant seat across from me, it's in the quail eggs I eat, the red lipstick I wear—small, seemingly random things. Yet, in these little reminders, there’s a quiet comfort, a proof that, in remembering, they are still with me, tucked in the crevices of my life for safekeeping.

As long as I live and breathe, grief will linger. I may as well welcome it with open arms, for grief is, after all, unexpressed love. I have so much love that it spills over when my eyes well, and yet, the rest of it never knew the tenderness of being felt in the embrace I never got to give and in the spaces between words I never got to tell. I hope it stays with me, this reminder that there was love and there will always be love.

Processing grief in the aftermath

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Undas is ultimately a celebration of life. That even in death, love bridges the divide between the living and the dead. It is a time of acceptance that as we go about our days, we grow better at carrying grief.

The ache hopefully becomes a subtle presence, like the low ring in my ear and the quiet hum of the fan. Grief might linger in the ordinary, in the background, like when I fold my laundry or sit through a lecture. We might learn to live alongside it, not because it fades but because we find ways to deal with it.

There’s a strange comfort in the everyday rhythm, in the routine that allows us to forget the sharp edges of loss, if only for a while. Though bittersweet, it offers the merciful chance to breathe without the weight pressing our ribs. Just for a while, we find a bit of peace.

It takes effort to exist in the absence. The mental effort it took pierces as physical pain; for a while, I’d think I got it, but just one trigger can tip the balance and knock me down.

We might find ourselves scheduling grief, but bottled-up emotions aren’t healthy. Release them and just feel these emotions. Welcome it, and when it’s time, let them go. I’ve learned not to run from grief because more than anything, I would love to talk about those I love to celebrate their lives and the life they get to live in memory.

When embracing grief as untold love, it becomes less of a burden. Grief becomes the gift we wish to hold onto. Glennon Doyle Melton said it best when she said, “Grief is love’s souvenir.”

We grow bigger around grief. We don’t tiptoe around in fear of shaking it awake—we live with it, and sometimes, more often than not, there is a time when the empty spaces won’t feel as much. We smile without the bittersweet taste, and we laugh without guilt. In that glimmer, I hope to move forward and celebrate that the grief we feel is all the love we have yet to give. - Jelsey Liz Dizon