Grief: the only love letter I'm willing to share.
My favourite memory was that one time you took me to the sea. We swam together, suspended in saltwater and sunlight.
It's been 3 years, 8 months, and 25 days since you left. I still can't believe the world didn't pause to grieve, not even for a teeny tiny bit of time. It didn't hesitate, it didn't dim. It simply kept spinning.
I sealed whatever I'm feeling tightly, and it left me confused. Am I too empty? Or am I overflowing? You're fading, you're fading, and I feel like I have nothing of you but a seashell and an old photo that we took five whole years ago.
Grieving never ends. We learn to live with it. I caught myself these past few years not allowing myself to feel it, not even when I'm on my own. I pushed everyone away, as if isolation would somehow make the inevitable loss of others easier to bear.
Everything reminds me of you, yet you keep slipping away. I can see you more and less in all the things around me.
I hate to admit that my mind is unwillingly starting to erase you bit by bit. I cry every time I try to remember. More often than not, I fail to recall not just your scent, but also your voice, the back of your hand, the way your nails were shaped, or even the sound of your laugh.
Sometimes I talk about you to people I meet for the first time, deliberately leaving out the part where you left irreversibly, enjoying for a fleeting moment the brief fiction of you still being alive.
In their minds, you still exist. You're at your home, filled with honey, talking to Grandma. In their minds, you're Captain Raafat Shehab, who's always at the sea, even though you retired decades ago.
I hate that you'll keep missing the rest of our lives. I hate that the list of things I thought you would never miss will endlessly lengthen. And I hate that I'll grieve you more than I have known you.
I wish you were still here. I wish we were closer. I wish I had hugged you more. I wish we had more photos together. I even wish I had laughed at all your dad jokes.
I'll keep holding onto the seashell and your cards until we meet again, ya gedo. Ugh, I even miss using the word. You'll always be in my heart.
Love,
Gogo
Little Amelie, ahla film shofto fi el gouna 5lany a3yt kteer awy ldrgt eny da5lto tany awl mara kan surprisingly fih school trip w et3rft 3la Perry w Febronia
Ps: Perry namt fi el nos el awl, Febronia namt fi el nos el tany mn el film w they both liked it anyway
M3rfsh httfrgo 3alih ezay bs you have to
Wel music elly e5tartha mn the little prince shofoh bardo ✨
