I’ve attended more funerals than weddings.
It is not something I have deliberately kept count of, but over the years, I have found myself attending more farewells than celebrations of new beginnings. I’ve stood among grieving families, witnessed final goodbyes, and experienced the peculiar silence that follows when someone who was once part of this world is no longer in it.
I’ve lost a cousin, an uncle, a grandmother and friends. Each death affected me differently, leaving behind a kind of absence that was difficult to compare with the others. I’ve also watched two people I know grieve the deaths of their fathers in remarkably different ways. Both had lost a parent, yet the emotions they experienced and the ways they navigated their grief were distinct.
It made me realise that while death is universal, grief is deeply personal.
We often associate grief with sadness, longing and the difficulty of accepting someone’s absence. But I’ve witnessed grief accompanied by regret, acceptance, relief and sometimes an unexpected sense of peace. Some people grieve openly, while others appear composed. Some find comfort in knowing that a loved one is no longer suffering, even as they struggle with the permanence of that loss.
I don’t think the intensity of someone’s grief necessarily reflects how much they loved the person who died. Human relationships are far too complicated to be measured by how someone mourns.
And perhaps that is because when someone dies, we don’t all lose the same person in quite the same way.
A father may also be a husband, brother, son and friend. Everyone gathered at his funeral may be mourning the same individual, but each carries a different history with him. His children remember a father, his siblings remember their childhood together, and his friends remember someone whose life extended beyond his family.
One death can leave behind many different kinds of absence.
But there is something else about grief that I’ve come to contemplate. When someone dies, we don’t merely lose their presence. We also lose a version of ourselves that existed because they were part of our lives.
When a grandmother dies, we remain her grandchildren, but the relationship can no longer be experienced as it once was. When a parent dies, we continue being their children, yet our place in the family may change in ways we never anticipated. When an old friend dies, we may lose someone who remembered a part of our lives that nobody else knew quite the same way.
There are memories that belong to two people. When one dies, the other is left carrying a shared history that can no longer be revisited together.
In that sense, grief is not only about the person who has died. It is also about the parts of our own lives that end with them.
Lately, I’ve found myself thinking about this more as my parents grow older and deal with illness. Their mortality is no longer something I can consider purely in the abstract. I know that one day, I may have to navigate life without them. I can acknowledge that possibility, consider what it might involve and try to prepare myself.
But I cannot predict how I will grieve.
And this is what I find particularly fascinating about human existence. We know death is inevitable. It is perhaps the only certainty we all share, regardless of our circumstances, beliefs or achievements. Yet even after witnessing it repeatedly, we remain remarkably unprepared when it reaches someone close to us.
There is an exchange in the Mahabharatham that captures this contradiction beautifully.
When a Yaksha asks Yudhishthira what the greatest wonder in the world is, he responds that countless beings die every day, yet those who remain continue to believe that they will live forever.
Thousands of years later, that observation remains remarkably relevant.
We have advanced in medicine, science and our understanding of the human body. We can prolong lives and treat illnesses that once meant certain death. Yet none of these advancements has changed the fundamental reality of mortality.
We prepare for education, careers, marriage, parenthood and retirement. We make plans for years we have not yet lived and speak about tomorrow with an assurance that tomorrow will arrive.
Death, however, is rarely given the same consideration.
I don’t think we necessarily take death lightly because we are indifferent. Perhaps acknowledging its certainty at every moment would make ordinary living unbearably difficult. We need some expectation of continuity to build relationships, pursue ambitions and make commitments.
Still, it is curious that we can be so familiar with death and remain so uncomfortable confronting it.
Hindu philosophy offers an interesting perspective on this contradiction, particularly through Lord Sivan.
We commonly associate Sivan with destruction, although his significance extends far beyond the ending of life. As Natarajar, his cosmic dance represents the interconnected processes of creation, preservation, dissolution, concealment and grace. The drum symbolises creation, while the flame symbolises destruction, reminding us that beginnings and endings are inseparable parts of existence.
What I find especially thought-provoking is Sivan’s association with cremation grounds and the sacred ash that adorns him.
The cremation ground is where the distinctions we spend much of our lives establishing eventually lose their significance. Wealth, status, beauty and worldly achievements cannot prevent the physical body’s dissolution. The ash reminds us of this impermanence, confronting us with a reality we often spend our lives avoiding.
And yet, we worship Sivan and seek his blessings for protection, health and longevity.
There is something profoundly human about that. We understand that life is temporary, yet we continue praying for more time.
The Bhagavad Gita also teaches that the atman, the true Self, is not destroyed with the physical body. Within Hindu philosophy, death is not necessarily understood as the absolute end of existence, but as part of a much larger spiritual journey.
Yet spiritual understanding does not make human grief disappear.
We may believe that the soul continues beyond bodily death, but we still miss the person whose voice we can no longer hear. We may accept that an elderly relative has lived a long life, yet struggle with the emptiness their absence creates. We may find peace in someone’s passing while simultaneously regretting conversations that never happened.
Acceptance and sorrow are not mutually exclusive. Neither are regret and gratitude.
Perhaps that is why attending funerals has never made me feel particularly experienced in grief. I may recognise the rituals, understand the finality of death and appreciate the philosophical teachings surrounding it. But none of that tells me what another person’s death will mean to me.
Nor does it tell me what my own death will mean to those I leave behind.
I don’t know how I will be remembered, whether the things I’ve accomplished will matter to future generations, or how much of my existence will remain once the people who knew me are gone. Eventually, memories fade, stories change and generations move on.
Perhaps our lives do not need to be remembered indefinitely to have mattered. After all, the people we have lost continue to shape our experiences even when the rest of the world knows nothing about them.
And so I return to Yudhishthira’s observation about humanity’s greatest wonder.
We witness death throughout our lives, understand that it is inevitable and inherit centuries of spiritual teachings that remind us of our impermanence. Yet we continue to live as though the people around us will always be there.
I cannot say whether we will ever become truly prepared for death. I suspect understanding its certainty and experiencing its consequences will always be two very different things.
What I have come to appreciate is that every death leaves behind more than the absence of a person. It changes the lives, relationships and sometimes even the identities of those who remain.
And perhaps that is what makes grief so difficult to anticipate.
We know that one day, the people we love will die. We know that we will, too.
What we cannot know is how much of the life we recognise will disappear with them.
