grief – The Orbital

Grief, Guilt, and the Fear of Forgetting

21Jan

By Ruby SaggersNo Comments

Lifestyle

Grief, Guilt, and the Fear of Forgetting

By Ruby Saggers, Editor-in-Chief The 19th July 2022 placed me in an eternal loop of grief. I lost my eldest brother, my absolute best friend, after he was missing for two days. Detectives informed us they had found a body at the bottom of our local reservoir: a short period of distress was met with sudden grief and everything fell apart. Since that day, it hasn’t stopped; the bad news just keeps on coming. I lost two beloved cousins, my grandparents passed three months apart, and my father has been battling a brain tumour longer than I’ve been alive. Last September, we discovered he has a second tumour growing on his brain. Some days, he has trouble remembering who we are. Now, after all this, all I feel is guilt. I haven’t truly been able to grieve the loss of my bro...

Fingerprint

Written by Ruby Saggers, Editor-in-Chief Content Warning: Mentions of grief A fingerprint hangs from my neck. It moves with me, gripping, and I cannot leave without it. Tennessee Whiskey... Golden Brown... Red Red Wine... Mind drifts, words wander, but my fingers always find their place - atop a teardrop, all I have left. Getting older now, though time stands still in your land. Experience overlaps memory, senses become distant. Where are you? ...

Bedtime Stories for a Grieving Child no. 4: Royal Holloway on Fiction

His wrinkles were gone. His crows’ feet only just starting to set in, the laugh lines around his mouth less pronounced than what I was used to. He wore his starched white business shirt, sweat faintly dripping down his brow, his hair just starting to recede. There he stood in his stiff work clothes, a handkerchief just peeping out of his pocket. “Well? Aren’t you going to invite me in?” Dad said, a hint of playfulness creeping into his voice. I smelt the cigarettes off his breath. There was pandan in the air somewhere. I tasted the ash in my mouth. He accompanied me all the way to the hospital, making small comments about the old photos that I found in his old apartment, even after he separated from Mom. He kept the different rings that they wore during their marriage, tucked ...