No Amount of Time is Too Long

How Long Does it Take to Heal?

I was going through some of my old pieces of writing when I stumbled on a story I wrote over a year ago. I had written it a few days before my mum passed. I had watched her last breath left her and I had nothing left to feel. The story was about a boy who watched his twin fell from the roof and died. For months, he was numb. It took him a long time to start paying attention to anything ever again.

---

---

Perhaps that was the universe indirectly telling me to get ready. Because till today, I still don't understand how I could have written that and my mum died on me the next few days. Weird and scary. Premonition is a strange thing. This brings me back to my question.

How long does it take to heal?

I get very worried when I see people who have lost a loved one rush back to their normal activities almost immediately like nothing happened, especially if the person is close to them. Perhaps it's their way of dealing with it but grief always comes back. And when it does, you'd desperately wish you had paid attention to it earlier. It breaks you. I know because I've been there.

People rush through a lot of things mostly because of what others would say. Whether or not we want to admit it, we look and worry about the feelings of the society more than we worry about our well being. What will people say? What about those that look up to me? How will I explain to them?

But to what end, really?

Believe me when I tell you that none of them would be there when your body goes into a shock and breaks down. That is actually one of the few times you realise the number of people that cares for you enough. You'll be doing yourself a great disfavour by choosing them over yourself when you haven't healed.

This is me telling you today to take all the time you need. No amount of time is too long. HEAL. That's the only way you can move forward. That's also the only way you can look after people you care about.

---

_{image source}