Conversations with an Insomniac (haibun)

If we are born, we must die. That’s the only certainty in life. But that’s what we struggle with the most. Seeing my grandparents’ funerals when I was still learning to adult, I was distraught but refused to cry. Crying was for the weak in the 1980s and 90s, at least in my family. We held our heads high and accepted that all beginnings have ends.
 
But secretly, I had wanted to collapse into my bed and cover myself with a blanket because I didn’t want to accept that soft, warm and loving grandparents disappear. They should be around forever to diffuse love into a difficult-to-understand world.
 
Much later, when my father’s end came, I was devastated but held up for the day because I was the primary caregiver and I had seen it coming. A quiet strength had seeped in but that didn’t help in the days after. I was nearly fifty, and couldn’t be bothered about what my family or society expected of showing grief. I cried and held my daughter who was learning to adult, and was now of the same opinion that grandparents should never die.  
 
between seasons
humid heat seeping
into an autumn dusk