What is grief?

What is grief?

Google says it’s a feeling of deep sorrow. Which is what I feel. Why do I feel it? I lost a family member.

The real reason I’m questioning is that I didn’t know her. Am I allowed to feel sorrow for her death, when we didn’t know each other? When I was born where she lived, yet she never wanted to meet or hold me? When she had asked my mother to get rid of me before I had the opportunity to exist? Part of me says no, I shouldn’t miss this unknown lady on my fathers’ side of the family.

But there’s the side of me that wonders. What did her voice sound like, what was her favorite food and perfume, did we look alike? I feel a pang of sadness inside me for the little girl that will never have the answers. I could ask and receive the answers, yes, but it’s not the same as knowing them through experience.

Do I cry over her?

Am I allowed to cry over a stranger with the same last name, same blood?

Do I ask around, trying to find an older lady with her first name, see if it’s the same?

Do I believe that maybe I’ll meet her the day we’re both lucky enough to get to heaven if it’s there?

Do I fly there, find the rest of the family, and try to be held by them, even with the anxiety that they can turn me away?

Or do I just sit here, questioning each thought that goes through my mind, no direction?

What the answers are, I fear I’ll never know. I can’t sit here and Google those like I can a definition. Maybe that’s okay, maybe I won’t get the answers to these questions, but to others. Maybe there’s someone out there, wondering the same, and there’s comfort in the confusion.