the center of the spider's web // on grief

 Grandma died before medical school started, which was convenient. 

She died in April. April 28th, 2025, at roughly 3:23 pm. (I counted the breaths). She died after I quit my job. She died after hearing I got into medical school. She died after a fit of lucidity, where she woke up and saw everyone in the house just for her. My five uncles, my aunt, me and as many cousins as could rush to her side. 

She died at sort of the perfect time. 

She had the best possible death. She died surrounded by her family she loved, in the house she'd lived in for decades, holding the hand of her husband of sixty years. She died hopped up on as much morphine as we could give her. For the broken ribs, for the failing heart, for the fluid in her lungs. 

"Best possible death" - like there is such a thing. 

But I chant it in my mind. I let it run like a lo-fi radio station in the back of my brain, because it's the only thing that keeps me in a mild state of sanity. 

Grandma died in April, and medical school started in August. But finding an apartment started earlier. Paying the tuition started earlier. Grandma died at the perfect time, because the world does not stop spinning and the sun does not stop shining when your grandma dies. It hardly even hiccups. 

Grandpa also died at the perfect time. 

Grandpa did not even go a year without Grandma. He died in October. He died after getting to see me in my white coat. He died in October at a time where I had basically three weeks in a row of three day weekends, when I could fly down and attend a funeral my mom had to plan all by herself. 

They died at the perfect time. They had to have died at the perfect time. I have to believe they died at the perfect time, because if they didn't, then it was a tragedy. And if it was a tragedy, then I have to grieve. And I don't have time to grieve. I have school.

"Just make them proud," is something my mom would say to me. It was meant to be motivating, and I guess in a way it was. I'm doing very well for myself, all things considered. I'm more productive than I ever have been in my whole life. 

But today is April 24, 2026. 

In four days, the Earth will have been without Grandma for one full circle of the sun. 

In four days, I have to teach others how to do an ultrasound of the kidneys. 

But today, instead of studying the kidneys, I find myself sitting in my car, crying my eyes out for no reason in particular. I could blame it on the sad song I heard. Or the old woman in the locker room of the gym I saw. Or the fact that studying the kidneys means I'll inevitably have to study dialysis, something I had to do for my grandparents for three years. 

And I find myself thinking that they did not die at the perfect time. In these terrible moments I'm taken by the neck and held underwater by some unseen force, I remember the imperfection of it all. How Grandma asked "can we all go get dim sum when I'm better?". How I didn't make it down in time to see Grandpa pass. I had to say goodbye to him over a video call when I know he was too deaf to hear. How I had to take a quiz after. 

I realize that I have not "grieved" .There isn't a past tense for this process of waking up, going about your day, and then being drowned. There isn't a past tense for thinking on someone, and hallucinating they're just far away from you. That's all I can imagine. My grandparents, exactly as I remember them. They are in the house they raised me in, and I am on the outside, screaming, pounding my arms against the glass and I can't get to them. 

My grandparents were not perfect people. They undoubtedly did eons worth of emotional damage to their children. They could be brash, stubborn, unyielding, abusive. 

Still, in the most primal part of my human being, I love them. I miss them so much. I get these feelings that I would chew and tear my own arm off to see them again. I hold myself sometimes and try to remember the smell of my grandma's hair, feel the silk of her pajamas and the papery feeling of her skin. 

I find myself complaining about all of these things four days before the anniversary of Grandma's death because I've come to the great and terrible realization that everyone makes about grief, in their own time. Not just that every saying about it is correct (it is.) But that you can't just grieve a person. 

You grieve a person by going small. Grieving their lost pieces. You grieve their voice, and the light in their eyes, and you anticipate the grief of waking up one day having forgotten both. You grieve memories they have of you that you've forgotten, and they'll never get to reminisce with you. The slow realization you'll never feel their hug again, no matter how many pillows you try to smother yourself in. That you can't talk to your new friends about them, tell stories without the tinge of melancholy over it. 

Then, you start to grieve big. The house you saw them in. The people in your life that leave after they're gone. The snapshot of the world you lived in, when they were here. You go to tell them something grand that's happened, and you turn around, and they're not there. You wonder their thoughts on the new movie, your new job, the state of the world. 

And last of all, you grieve yourself. The identity you've lost, of being "theirs". The secret person you were with them, and no one else. 

Somewhere, in that magical faraway house my grandparents now live, there is a little girl that used to be me. She is living there with them, and I am standing outside, and I can never become her again. She's gone forever, too. 

"Grandma died at the perfect time". 

Is there a perfect time to feel part of myself die? 

It's such an independent instinct, trying to compartmentalize the inconvenience of loss so I can continue "functioning". Trying to treat the whole ordeal as if there was a bright side to it and delude myself into thinking I can run the marathon with my leg missing.

 But there isn't compartmentalizing something that is a whole. Or compartmentalizing things that are dependent on each other. Can you "compartmentalize" a house of cards? 

I am not writing this to make the tragedy of loss about me. My grandma wanted to live. My grandpa... I think he wanted her, to live. They wanted to live together. The fact that their souls are no longer in the home they wanted it to be is injustice enough. Death is injustice enough. 

But I'm writing this because I have made a realization. There are strong believers out there who think a human being is a complete unit, able to decide for themselves. I am not one of them. I am defined by the people I love. 

I am the center of a spider's web. There's no such thing - nothing exists there. It's solely defined by the borders that the spider draws with its silk. 

Thread tied to thread. Stronger than steel. There, and then gone forever. 

My grandparents were as much a part of me as my ears are, my mouth is, my toes, my tongue, my eyes. I've been stumbling around blind. I've been stuffing my head with platitudes to myself that I am doing well when I am bleeding out. 

I am giving myself permission to grieve. 

Dear Grandma, Grandpa,

I hope I have made you proud. I have been working so hard to make you proud. But I miss you so much. Lately, it feels like, my whole life is nothing but a distraction from the fact that you are gone. 

But you are my ears, my mouth, my toes, my tongue, my eyes. 

What I do, you do. My success is your success.

I love you. I'm sorry. I forgive you. Please forgive me. 

Wherever you are, I will follow. And then I'll be whole again.  

Love (always), 

Your granddaughter.