Loss, Mostly

7:32am: I woke up. I scrolled on my phone for a bit and thought about getting up and going for a walk like I used to. The weather looked nice, the birds were already out, and for a few moments I genuinely considered it. But the tiredness won. I put my phone down, rolled over, and fell asleep again.

10:09 a.m: My eyes opened for the second time. This time my first instinct wasn't to reach for my phone — I just lay there staring at the ceiling, thinking about the same things I always think about. The thoughts circled closer and closer to the edge of a spiral before I snapped myself out of it and grabbed my phone instead. Someone else was using the washroom anyway. I had an excuse to stay in bed a little longer.

An hour passed.

11:25 a.m: I finally climbed out from under my blanket and got ready to eat. Was it breakfast? Lunch? Lunch, I decided. I ate while scrolling. I know it's bad for me. I know my attention span is probably deteriorating in real time, and every article online seems convinced that doomscrolling is destroying our brains. But who cares. I have to study. I do study — I sit down with my notes, open the textbook, and stare at the same page for twenty minutes because my brain is busy somewhere else.

It's the same cycle every day. Instagram. TikTok. Spotify. Then back again. So I picked up a new sport to follow so I can spend hours learning players' names, statistics, storylines — not because I care that much about the sport, but because it gives my mind something else to hold onto. Anything else. Anything except the loss.

People imagine grief as crying. Sometimes it is. But most of the time, grief looks like distraction — like moving from one thing to the next, desperately trying to stay ahead of your own thoughts. It's an open wound I'm constantly trying to stitch shut, only for it to split open again. A sentence can do it. A memory. A passing comment in a conversation that has absolutely nothing to do with death, and suddenly I'm back there — back to the phone call, back to hearing those words, back to yelling in disbelief because none of it made sense, back to crying and crying because none of it felt real.

Even now, a couple weeks later, it doesn't always feel real. The memory waits quietly in the background until something brushes against it, and then everything comes rushing back at once.

The strange thing about grief is that it doesn't care whether you're busy. It doesn't care if you're with friends, or studying for an exam, or laughing. Sometimes I'll be having a genuinely good day, surrounded by people I love, and I'll forget for a few minutes. Then the day ends. The walk home begins. The room gets quiet. The night settles in. And there it is again. Waiting.

I think that's the part nobody tells you — how exhausting it is to carry grief around while pretending to function normally, how often you suppress it because you don't want to burden anyone else. How much grief looks like telling yourself not right now. Not in class. Not during dinner. Not while studying. Not while your friends are laughing. Not right now.

Not right now. Not right now.

The truth is that grief fills me with contradictions. I want to be alone, but I don't want to be lonely. I want people to understand, but I don't want to talk about it. I want company, but sometimes I don't have the energy to be around anyone. I miss him constantly, except for the occasional few minutes when I forget — and then I feel guilty for forgetting. I want to move forward, but I don't want to leave him behind.

The best thing anyone has done for me is not offer advice. Not tell me that time heals all wounds. Not compare my loss to their own. Not search for the perfect words, because there aren't any. Grief is not something people can solve for you.

Sometimes help looks like agreeing to meet up even when you're busy, because you know your friend needs company. Sometimes it looks like talking about completely ordinary things — classes, sports, relationships, the weather. Anything. Everything. Nothing.

Sometimes it looks like calling your friends at midnight and asking if they want to hang out, then spending hours playing Ludo because you're trying not to break down again. Sometimes it looks like calling your best friend in tears and ending the conversation laughing. Sometimes it looks like not talking about it at all.

The people who helped me most did not have answers. They simply stayed. A walk. A coffee. A late-night phone call. Sitting beside me in comfortable silence. Company, not solutions — because grief is not a problem to solve. It is something you learn to carry.

Until eventually you're too tired to distract yourself anymore.

So you go to sleep. And wake up the next morning. And begin the same cycle all over again.

June 13, 2026 | Mississauga