How Anger Made Grief Feel Better

Tracing how childhood anger made adolescent grief feel less bitter.

Back in school, I wore my anger on my sleeve.

I was almost relentless, like a psychopath who barely knew mercy. I’d snap like lightning at the smallest of inconveniences.

But my parents never knew this, they were too emotionally spent to be a witness to my anger.

But that didn’t mean I had discounted my rage, nope. I just swallowed it, day after day, to spare them the misery.

I badly wanted to snap, especially when

• my father took me along to the sabzi mandi (vegetable market) that smelled of cow dung and gross veggies
• my eldest uncle asked me to massage his legs and I couldn’t say no
• my cousins called me names owing to the huge birthmark on my right eyebrow, which my mother till date claims to be a blessed gift.

I’d hurl curses in agony every time, which only echoed within and died almost simultaneously.

Over the years, the lava of rage I had been gulping melted most emotional binaries I then knew.

Grief and joy Guilt and pride Love and hate

I turned ice-cold, like a machine that knew no better.

During this time, my father got sick too. Very sick, apparently.

And this forced my mother to fight another battle she didn’t deserve.

For once, I could slowly feel the bittersweet taste of sadness on my tongue.

Sweet because I was finally feeling an emotion other than anger. Bitter because it was sadness.

My father passed. And I was stormed by a bouquet of new emotions.

It was like I had just gained consciousness.

Anger had me in chains for so long, that a part of me found comfort in grief and loss.