Today a good friend of mine asked me how i processed grief, which i thought was a very peculiar question. it's not really something one would ask someone and most definitely not really a common question in the first place but it’s a question that everyone will eventually have to face by themselves. i guess i had to try to think of my own answer a bit earlier compared to the average person? which i thought would make for a very good self dissection about all the losses i've experienced so far in my 19 years of life

But i've dealt with too many, and i think if i had to talk about all of them at once, i might as well write an autobiography (which isn’t exactly what i would want to read, not even myself!) so i'll talk about which loss i still think about until the very moment i'm writing this. which would be my sister, who had her life taken away by coronary disease. she was 16 and just about to enter the 11th grade of high school, full of spirits, stuff like that, you know. i think it’s always tragic no matter what. such a long life to live yet taken way too early, but i was 9 at the time, i was in 4th grade, it was very sudden. i still remember that night. i ate a pack of instant noodles, i think anyone could’ve guessed what brand it was, and then i slept on the living room couch, along with my mom and dad, while my sister slept with my grandma in her room.

And then at about 3 in the morning, i woke up to a room echoing with panic and shouts. my sister was unresponsive? and then about half an hour later, we rushed her to the hospital. i stayed with my grandma while my mom and my dad went to the hospital, so i never really knew what truly happened when they brought her to the hospital. while i was at home, i just clutched her pink, hello kitty blanket along with my blue doraemon blanket (which i still use to this very day!). i’m not sure what was going through my mind at the time? the television was still running and played an islamic tv show, followed by … paw patrol. neighbors who i didn't even recognize up until now started to enter our house, the quiet room was quickly filled up with buzz and chats. i think the fact that i can basically tell how everything unfolded in decent detail but i can’t even pour a single sentence of how i felt at the moment should be a great testament about the rest of this writing.

By morning i saw her pale body before it was going to be washed and eventually buried, i can vividly remember that i didn't cry, i didn’t feel sorrow or anything but i felt a huge surge of spookiness? if anything i just couldn’t feel any emotion toward her, which you can probably say is an awful thing for me to do, but … that’s genuinely what i felt? but yeah by the end of the day it didn’t hit me as much as you would have thought.

Reflecting on it, i still have no idea why i reacted, or more so, didn’t react more when that happened, i think it really was an unexpected occurrence that i didn’t think would happen to her? as i grew up i eventually realized that her loss definitely means a lot to me. it’s like a gradual punch of realization over the course of years that staggers here and there. and with my extremely low self confidence and self worth, it’s only gotten worse, especially ever since i passed her age, not necessarily that i outlived her, but more so how i still couldn’t “outlive” her, she was smart, i was not. she was full of ambition, while i was constantly pushed because i couldn’t make a choice for myself. she was loved by everyone, and i was constantly trying to find the same feeling from everyone. not necessarily that i was abandoned. absolutely not. if Anything my parents favored me slightly more than my sister (presumably because i was the younger one?) but it’s not anything disastrous, it was mild all things considered, which made it worse because of how “i turned out”. i wasn’t deprived of love and attention, neither was she. but she had a lot of friends, i didn’t. she was cherished, and i was a liability. if we continue, there isn’t going to be an end to this, but i suppose you have the general idea already

And i think it was even harder when the pandemic hit and my mom was mentally unstable, we’d argue every day, and sometimes she would say stuff like how she wished that it had been me instead of her, i didn’t take it to heart, i knew she was unstable, and didn’t mean it, but i guess i’m cursed with trying to make every single thing about me. i think it might or might not have been the reason why at certain times i’d genuinely think that i didn’t deserve to live as much as my sister, simply because i’m aware, with or without my mom’s comment that she would’ve taken advantage of this beautiful gift much better than me.

Did i resent her? absolutely not. i loved her, i adored her. i annoyed her. i bickered with her. i ruined her stuff. i went with her anywhere she asked me to tag along. i told her my secrets. i read her books that i borrowed from her (i lost them anyway :3). it was your average sibling rivalry, love and hatred. i guess i didn’t realize what i lost right away. and these days i wish she were here, i wish i had someone to rely on, not that i don’t rely on my mom, but she’s in a bad state, i mean, if she were still here, my mom wouldn’t be in such a state, and i guess i could ask her about stuff that i never learned how to do, because i had to do everything on my own. i could ask her for some pocket change to buy the snacks i’m craving. we could’ve watched a movie or read books that i know she would have absolutely loved.

I hate myself for imagining such a world, even i wish for the dead to fulfill my needs, which i think is pretty horrid. so yes, in a very lengthy conclusion, i never knew how to “deal” with it, maybe i simply haven’t found a concrete answer, considering my lack of determination, maybe i’ll never find my answer? who knows, it's not a question i have to answer anyway. i think, the fact that i thought of her this much means that i simply never stopped loving her, even as stoic as i was on the day she departed, those feelings will continue to grow, i don't know when it will continue. to reiterate my point, i miss her. and i hate to think that my life would be fixed if she were here, and i resent myself for that