Because They Were Here

 After reading Oyunga Pala's piece, "Grief is Not Democratic," I found myself sitting with a thought that felt both uncomfortable and deeply true: we do not grieve all losses equally.

His reflection that "we mourn what mirrors us" forced me to examine my own relationship with grief. Why do certain deaths stay with us while others fade? Why do some names become permanent residents in our memories while countless others, equally loved and equally significant, pass quietly through our consciousness?

The piece made me realise that grief is often less about death itself and more about recognition. We grieve those in whom we see ourselves, our aspirations, our fears, our unfinished stories, and the futures we imagine for ourselves. Their loss becomes a reminder of our own fragility, of dreams interrupted, of possibilities left unexplored.

Yet every loss is monumental to someone. Every person who leaves this world is somebody's favourite voice, somebody's safe place, somebody's reason to keep going. The tragedy is not that we cannot hold every grief equally; it is that we sometimes forget the depth of sorrows we do not personally carry.

And lately, there seems to be so much grief to carry.

The stories confront us daily. Women whose lives are cut short by violence. Children who leave for school and never return. Young people fighting silent battles that those around them never see. Families suddenly torn apart by accidents, tragedy, cruelty, or despair. Names flash across our screens and dominate conversations for a day or two before another tragedy takes their place.

There is something unsettling about how easily life seems to be lost, and how quickly we learn to move on. Perhaps it is a survival mechanism. Perhaps it is the only way to function in a world that constantly places sorrow at our doorstep. But I sometimes wonder what becomes of all that grief once the headlines fade.

Perhaps grief was never meant to be fair. Perhaps it was only ever meant to remind us that our lives are intertwined in ways both visible and invisible. That behind every obituary, every breaking news alert, every statistic, is a universe of memories, laughter, arguments, dreams, and love that cannot be measured by public mourning or collective remembrance.

I am left reflecting not only on the people I have lost, but also on the countless lives whose significance I will never fully know. And maybe there is humility in that recognition. To understand that every person who leaves this world takes with them a story that mattered.

Not because they were famous. Not because they mirrored us.

But because they were here.

And now they are not.