Tag: Grief

Still Here

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I didn’t expect a video game to undo me today.

I was just drifting—scrolling through my PS5 library like I’ve been doing with everything else in my life lately. Looking without really looking. Nothing holding. Nothing landing. And then I opened Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Not because I wanted to play it—just because it was there. Habit. Muscle memory.

The moment my character started walking through the forest, something inside me cracked.

It wasn’t the game.

It was the recognition.

That feeling of stepping into a version of my life that doesn’t exist anymore.

When I checked the save file, it said May 2025.

And I just broke down.

Because that was a time when Zack and Xena were alive. When my world, however imperfect, was still whole in ways it will never be again.

I couldn’t overwrite it.

I physically couldn’t.

It felt like killing something that was already dead. Like I would be complicit in erasing proof that that life ever happened. So I didn’t. I made a new save. Left that one untouched. Preserved. Frozen. Like grief does.

Not in a dignified, poetic way. There was nothing graceful about it. It was ugly. It was helpless. It was that kind of crying where your chest actually hurts and you don’t even know what exactly you’re crying for anymore because it’s everything.

After that I went looking for her.

Goodie Pua.

Instagram first. Then Facebook. Scrolling like if I just kept going I might find something I’d missed. Some version of her that still exists somewhere. I found a photograph I love. One I’ve seen before. It didn’t matter. I held onto it like it was new.

And then a song came into my head. 

Mohammed Rafi singing “Waqt Se Din Aur Raat.”

And that was it.

Because today is the 19th.

The day she passed. 

Five years.

Five years and I still can’t accept that she’s just… gone. That all of them are just… gone.

What am I supposed to do with that?

What does anyone do with that?

People talk about grief like it’s something you process, something that moves, something that softens.

It doesn’t.

It just builds.

It layers.

It waits.

And then it hits you in moments like this—when you’re doing something completely meaningless, and suddenly you’re not in your life anymore. You’re standing in all the lives you’ve lost at once.

Pua.  

Zack.  

Xena.  

Do you know what it feels like to carry that many ghosts?

Because I do.

And I’m tired.

I’m so tired of being the one who survives everything.

There’s something deeply unfair about it. About watching everyone you love leave—whether through death or distance or whatever cruel mechanism life chooses—and you’re just… still here.

Still expected to function. To eat. To talk. To show up. To carry on like this is normal.

It’s not normal.

It’s not okay.

And I’m not okay with it.

When Christina waved at me from the car today, I waved back. And in that exact moment, something inside me just… dropped.

Because I’ve lived that wave before.

I’ve lived the kind that ends everything.

And my body remembers it, even when I don’t want to.

That’s the thing no one tells you—your body keeps score in ways your mind can’t control. A simple goodbye isn’t simple anymore. It’s loaded. It’s dangerous. It’s a reminder of how quickly everything can be taken.

And then I start thinking—

What is the point of any of this?

Where is this going?

How much more loss is waiting for me?

Because it feels endless.

And I don’t have some beautiful, hopeful answer.

If I’m being completely honest—the only reason I’m still here is Zuri.

That’s it.

Not purpose. Not passion. Not some belief in life getting better.

Just her.

Because she needs me.

Because I know how to love her in a way that feels right. In a way that feels like the only thing I haven’t completely failed at.

And even as I say that, there’s this voice in my head that says—

“Maybe even she will be fine without you.”

And that thought… that thought is brutal.

Because it makes everything feel even smaller. Even more pointless. Like I’m holding on for something that may not even need me the way I need it.

But then there’s this other truth. One I don’t even understand myself.

I always come back.

I don’t know how.

I don’t know why.

I don’t even feel like I want to sometimes.

But I do.

Every time I’ve hit this place—where everything feels meaningless, where the weight feels unbearable, where I genuinely don’t see the point—I still somehow find myself waking up the next day. Breathing. Moving. Existing.

Not healed.

Not better.

Just… still here.

And I don’t know if that’s strength or habit or just survival instinct refusing to let go.

Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Maybe this isn’t a story about healing.

Maybe it’s just the truth of what it is to live like this—

Carrying too much.  

Remembering too much.  

Losing too much.  

And still, somehow, being forced to continue.

Today isn’t a lesson.

There’s no meaning I can tie this into to make it easier to hold.

It’s just grief.

Raw. Heavy. Unresolved.

A song I didn’t choose.  

A memory I couldn’t escape.  

A save file I couldn’t overwrite.  

And the most uncomfortable truth of all—

That even now, even like this,

I am still here.

Zuri After Xena

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I wonder what Zuri must feel,
As she looks at your bed;
Pauses briefly –
Then walks on ahead.

Do dogs sense absence,
Know loss, feel grief?
For sure, when I come home,
She softens in relief.

So does your scent linger,
After a fortnight of loss?
It must…or am I just
Displacing remorse?

She moves more quietly now.
Yet her love is clear:
It doesn’t understand space –
Dead, alive, there, here.

My eyes well up less now,
Though the heart still kneels;
Longing lives on in Zuri;
Through her, my heart feels.

Love Never Lets Go

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

Tonight is not the last night.

And yet, it feels like it is.

Tomorrow morning, at 6:30, I will take what remains of Xena — her ashes, the last physical truth of her presence — and I will give them back to the sea. I know what that means. I have lived long enough, loved deeply enough, to understand the symbolism of it. Release. Return. Completion.

But knowing does not soften it.

It only sharpens the ache.

This week, the world around me has been full of beginnings. New years, new moons, new prayers. Gudi Padwa. Navroze — my mother’s day of joy. Cheti Chand for Anand. The end of Ramzan for Arif. Eid tomorrow.

Everywhere I look, people are stepping into light.

And I am standing here, holding on to ash, memory and grief.

I am not untouched by the beauty of these days. I see it. I respect it. Somewhere within me, I even honour it. But I cannot enter it. I cannot perform joy when my hands are still trembling with grief. I cannot send out cheerful messages as though something inside me hasn’t been quietly breaking, again and again.

Because this is not just about tomorrow.

Tomorrow, when I let Xena go, I will also be letting go of Zack. Not literally — I know that. But something final will close. Some last physical tether will dissolve. And I will be left with memory alone.

People say memory is enough.

It isn’t.

Not in moments like these, when your body still expects to reach out and find them. When your hands remember the weight of them. When your eyes still search for movement that will never come again.

And the hardest part — the part I cannot seem to say out loud without feeling misunderstood — is this:

People don’t fully understand.

They try. They are kind. They say the right things. But there is always that invisible boundary. That unspoken qualification.

“They were dogs.”

As though love measures species.
As though grief asks for permission.

I have loved before. I lost Zoe in 2013, and it hollowed me out in a way I didn’t think I would survive. I remember believing, with absolute certainty, that I would never love another being the way I loved her.

But I did.

I loved Xena.
I loved Zack.

Just as deeply. Just as completely.

And now I grieve them with the same fullness, the same helplessness.

So when people don’t understand, it isn’t because they don’t care.

It’s because they haven’t stood where I am standing — holding the last remnants of a love that had breath, warmth, presence… and now fits into something you can carry in your hands.

There is a particular kind of silence that comes with this kind of grief. It is not dramatic. It is not loud. It does not always cry.

It just stays.

It sits beside you when you wake up. It follows you through the day. It lies next to you at night. And sometimes, it makes even the most beautiful moments feel distant — like something you can observe, but not touch.

I cannot make people understand this.

And perhaps I don’t need to.

Because love like this — the kind that does not diminish, the kind that dares to return again after being broken — is not meant to be explained.

It is only meant to be lived.

And carried.

Until, one morning, you walk to the sea…
and understand that letting go was never the point.

Only loving is.