Artwork by Ilaria Ratti
“I’m not a religious person but I do sometimes think God made you for me.” - Connell to Marianne (Normal People, 2018)
When I read this line from the book, I felt like there was a light breeze that wafted inside of me. Not much was needed to be said after. In anticipation, I thought it would progress into something, but the next paragraph revealed Connell asking about Marianne’s new boyfriend, Jamie.
I couldn’t ignore the nearly comical tragedy of how these two—Marianne and Connell—have lost each other several times, ended up finding each other again, but fell short in the clarity of their presence in each other’s lives. Every time they reunite, their love is intense but drenched with moments of ‘almosts and not quite,’ unsaid feelings, missed opportunities, and heartbreaking miscommunications; teetering over blurred lines and tentatively dipping their feet in each other’s worlds, they saw each other but then again, not really. They grew to share a rare bond—more than friends but less than lovers.
For many times, they stood at the threshold of each other’s homes, finding company and sincerity in each other’s minds and bodies, yet with only a foot on the door and half a heart to offer; still, they allowed themselves to consume each other, no holds barred and no regrets.
This is a unique kind of grief as it is pain in the making. They may not be the ideal “couple” but Marianne and Connell represent the triad of the most complicated human emotions—grief, love, and loss—having experienced these in varying degrees and different times, sometimes all three at once. And it made me think, how many times can feelings die and how many times is it okay to revive them?
Love and grief have a difficult communion, with grief being a friend to loss, and love being the one that holds them together. The thing with love is that it cannot exist on its own. We love with respect. We love with admiration. We love with honesty. Some do the opposite though, while some don’t do anything at all, but simply let the feelings churn inside, like steeping hot tea until it becomes too much to take.
Without trust and understanding, the love is better off dead. To love is to know the layers of someone, and to know someone is like exploring a whole different universe—all their nuances and intricacies lay bare for one to see—for one to touch and feel. To hold and accept. Love is baring and vulnerable, that’s why loving is brave and the openness of the future involving uncertainties and risks comes with it—it’s tied to love in a hard knot. So if we want to love, we must learn to carry the weight of grief.
Grief is a testament to profound love and commitment. Grief cannot exist without love because it is love that gives grief meaning. It is the strongest counterpart to love, existing like the back of your hand and your palm, like two sides of the same coin.
No matter how long it takes, loss can hurt just as much as it did the first time. I realized how we don’t really get over people and memories, but we grow with them—we plant them in our minds and we allow the love that remains to nurture the remnants of what used to be. There’s a reason why some memories never feel distant. It’s something time cannot touch. And as time goes by, I don't believe that the emptiness brought by grief becomes filled. It's still there. It just becomes less noticeable during some days when we are reminded of how much we've loved and grown.
There's a sad beauty to it, don't you think? Loss brings grief, but it never ends love. We don't move on completely because as long as we love, we hold on—as long as there’s love, there’s hope sitting beside it.
