This Healing Love
“Grief is love that has no place to go.” I woke up to those words this morning, and the pain in my heart resurfaced, and I cried. It was an ugly cry, and though the pain was not as intense as it was two years ago, it still hurt. This was not the way I wanted to start my Friday. I admitted to myself that not only was I still carrying the loss of losing one of my closest friends to suicide, but I also still felt abandoned and angry at him for choosing to get an early ticket on life. Yet, I still love him and respect his decision. I think of and miss Sam every day.
He’d have turned 50 this August. Many of us, his friends, would have wanted to celebrate him massively, but he would have told us he would celebrate it the way he wanted, and we’d probably toe the line and go along with what he wanted.
Love and grief, I have discovered, are strange bedfellows. It’s usually love and joy, love and happiness or love and all things sugar and spice. Yet, it’s the only way I understand the loss I have experienced over the last few years. The pain is still there, and though it’s lessened, I get strength in knowing that this is love watered by tears, and sometimes they will trickle, and other times they will torrent. This love fills the emptiness surrounding the loss, and sometimes laughter, joy, warmth, and smiles sprout around that pain and the memories.
It’s taken a lot to admit I’ve been angry at Sam, but that wouldn’t bring him back. But I know that he is free from the pain that neither our friendship nor therapy could fix. My boy was in a dark hole, and this was the only way he knew out of it. Some may have wished he would have been stronger to escape that hole, but we project and wish. However, this was his journey, not mine. Acceptance. There is no point in being angry at a grave; I need to make room for the memories.
Yet, I wish he was around. To share photos of his excellent culinary skills, tell me why Boeing is better than Airbus or laud about a tech thing I wouldn’t understand. I missed him during AFCON 2024 last month because we are both roadside football spectators. We know just enough of the spot to get by. I wish we had one more night of drinking cheap whiskey and where we’d argue about his conspiracy theories. I wish I could share photos of my travels or attempts at cooking and then get laughed at or tell him about my trysts on the streets of Nairobi and Kilifi. Our humour was dark, but it was ours.
It takes a lot to look at his pictures, for I don’t know what cocktail my heart will serve. However, I do want the anger to go, for it feels like a weed that wants to steal the love around my grief. Love wins — that much I know.
So, to avoid being told off by Sam, Kui, Aunty Ella, Sachin, Lynne, Judy, Owiso, Komla, my dad, aunts and uncles, and the other living spirits and ancestors, I’m going to stop now and celebrate the thing that I still have—life. They’d want me to do that, and I know they are cheering me on. My love for them will see me through this grief and healing journey.
