I HAD always been afraid of the dark as a child. I’d leave a night light turned on in the corner in my room in the hopes of driving the monster under my bed away. Sometimes, when I chanced upon my family watching a film of horror genre, my bathroom light would take that little night light’s place.
While I lost touch with those fears as I came of age, little did I know that it would wear a new face and follow me all those years later. Enter one night early in 2021, when a friend of mine checked in on me minutes after I blurted out a self-deprecating joke. “Dani, how have you been lately?” They asked. “Are you alright?”
A deafening silence followed. “My father firmly decided to stop his chemotherapy treatment,” I shared with what felt like a lump in my throat. “I’ve been struggling to process this. I wish I knew how.”
My father was diagnosed with an aggressive type of cancer late last year. Stage four: A two-syllable phrase that only took one second to utter, but it was a bullet that tore right through my family. There was no exit wound, only shock.
The night I confided in my friend, I allowed myself to be vulnerable. I named my worries one by one: Will he be there to witness graduation or my first paycheck? How will I teach myself not to look away when the weighing scale tips lower than the last time we checked?
But, a much larger truth revealed itself: I’ve been filling the nooks and crannies of my life with the noise of senior year—thesis, internships, and endless meetings—because I was silently grieving. The monster under my bed, it turns out, has a name: Grief. I unknowingly believed that as long as I kept myself busy, I wouldn’t need to greet Grief hello.
But Grief, I discovered, can also be my friend.
Sometimes, Grief tells us that the future is one we can never predict, but it gently pulls our feet to the ground to show us what we can do today. Other times, it grabs us by our collars to lift us from spaces of denial and frustration.
Most importantly, Grief places its hand on our shoulders to tell us that we don’t have to cope with loss on our own. It whispers in our ears that forward is the only option, it is the only way through.
It opens our palms to uncover joys in the heartaches, too. Amid impending loss, I am witness to my father’s smile even in the most painful of days. His trademark laughter continues to fill quiet hallways. He puts one foot in front of the other with me when staircases seem to grow into taller hills.
Grief offers us a pillow for our heads to lie on when loss becomes far too difficult to bear, but the same Grief hands us the sword we need to keep fighting—even if it means opening our doors to unknown tomorrows.
What about that monster under my bed, you ask? It stays there, of course—and that’s okay. For now, I will keep getting out of bed and draw the curtains open to let the morning light peek through. I will maximize the days my father and I have left to relish. To just be.
All it takes is to keep the night light turned off. I will look Grief in the eye. I must.
