The Unseen Grief

Coping with the sudden loss of a loved one at a young age

Romance.

I first met Jay* at the airport.

We were both there with a couple of other friends that belonged to a student organization at our university I shall not name, waiting for new international students to arrive so we could help them get started in Prague.

I was a member of said organization, Jay was an exchange student from Portugal and a friend of my friend, who, before introducing us, described Jay as an “outrageous fuckboy” and warned me to “beware of him”. I laughed. I didn’t know what I was in for just yet.

But as she predicted, Jay did, indeed, took interest in me right away. We spent most of the day talking to each other when we should have been talking to our new arrivals instead. I didn’t quite understand his sense of humor just yet, but I found it intriguing enough to accept his Facebook friendship request later that day and start chatting with him about bread and all things random.

Our next interaction was later that week at Valentine’s party. There was a photobooth with cheesy heart-shaped signs and our friends made us take a couple of pictures there together just for fun. We look like a drunk yet loving couple there, despite barely knowing each other at that point.

What I didn’t know back then was that those cheesy pictures would become my only memory of him.

I didn’t live far from the club so when I decided that it was time for me to go home, I simply left and started walking towards my house. But for some strange reason, as this has never happened to me before or after that night, I got harassed by some creepers on the street. I panicked and did the first thing I could think of — I ran back to the club, found Jay and asked him to walk me home.

He did. It made me feel safe and comfortable and then it didn’t take long before we finally kissed. And although the ice was broken, once I got home safely, I didn’t let him past my front door and sent him back on his way.

Our first date started at McDonald’s. It wasn’t the setup for the actual date but he was late and McD’s seemed like the right place for me to wait for him in the cold February evening. Another coincidence. I am the kind of person who would typically have left. But that night, I waited.

We got drunk together and talked. A lot. About everything. He was a talker with absolutely no filter in his mouth and I liked that about him. Opening up was a hard task for me back then but somehow, he managed to break through my shell. Intoxicated, he walked me home alongside the river as we were talking about our past heartbreaks. It felt half funny and half romantic. I invited him upstairs that night.

I had just turned 21, was in my second year of uni and have just recently started my medication journey after struggling with depression for a good year and a half when all this happened. Due to many factors in my life, I was very inexperienced, naive and close-minded when it came to relationships and sex and I have only just started properly dating earlier that year.

After that night, I was convinced that now that he “got what he wanted” from me, he would never talk to me again. That’s what you get for putting out on the first date, that’s how it’s always portrayed, that’s how the story is supposed to go. I was mentally preparing myself for that while floundering in shame.

To my surprise, I got a text that same morning as if nothing happened. In fact, we started talking to each other every single day. He’d check up on me, wish me luck with my exams or wish me safe flights when I was traveling. I started visiting him at his place where we would cook together, watch stupid shows together, smoke, have sex and talk about random shit, as we both liked our conversations just like that — random. And by that, I slowly learned that casual relationships don’t have to be shameful or exploitative, as long as they are honest.

Being from different countries and on different life paths, we both knew that this wasn’t serious. But as I was the younger and more naive one, of course, I got attached more that I would have liked to. We talked about it. That, too, was completely new to me. No games, no pretense, no gaslighting, no lies. I told him that it would be best for me to stop seeing him for a bit. He understood and wanted to still be friends.

Despite not seeing each other for an entire month of April, we still chatted every single day and I appreciated that greatly. During the time, when I was having issues in university, with my living situation, with my family and when my entire life just seemed chaotic and disorganized, he was the constant, someone I could always rely on to be there for me and brighten up my day.

By May, I was mentally ready for us to meet again. I carefully examined my emotions and decided that since we were both supposed to leave Prague soon anyway, it would be best to just make the most of the time we have left together. We picked up where we left off immediately.

Little did I know that that would be our last time.

The actual last time I saw him was by accident. We happened to be at the same place but each with a different friend group. We ran into each other, he patted me on the head to mess with my hair and said something inappropriate. Then we both went on to enjoy the night separately.

My friends, who didn’t know anything about my involvement with Jay, brought him up and it turned out that they weren’t very fond of him. I used this as an opportunity to send him a “no1 likes you” text later that night.

It was a joke, as 99% of what we ever said to each other was. But I regret it now to no end. It was the last thing he got to hear from me.

The next day was the day when everyone went on a canoe trip, organized by our student group. Although I have always loved water sports, I didn’t go because my upcoming important physical chemistry exam wouldn’t let me.

Jay, on the other hand, went and never came back.

Loss.

Imagine this. You send a text to Jay when you wake up in the morning hungover, wishing him a safe and fun trip. Then you spend your entire day studying, wishing you could have been canoeing like everyone else instead. For some reason, you can’t stop checking your phone, waiting for a reply. Hours go by, the sun starts going down. They should all be back by now. Still no response and not even any online activity. Strange. That wasn’t like him at all. Maybe they went to watch the Eurovision, that was also the plan, I remember. I’ll just wait. I can’t study anymore. My focus is gone. I grow tired and, for some reason, restless. Did he drop his phone in the river? I don’t even know if you are supposed to take your phone on the river with you. Wait, why am I thinking about it that much? Something doesn’t feel right.

Something, indeed, wasn’t right. Later in the evening, as I was scrolling through Facebook, I came across a post. THE post. The one you don’t want to see, ever.

It was one of the organizers of the trip informing the rest of us that they sadly lost one of the participants who had an accident on the river and drowned.

Then I read the name.

I read the post through and through at least 10 times and I still didn’t think it was real. I messaged the girl who wrote it. “Hey, I just read your post, that’s a joke, right?” “I wouldn’t joke about something like that” she replied, dry and void of any emotion at all. It took me a few moments to process it.

Then came the breakdown.

I have never experienced anything like this before. I have never felt anything like this before and I have never cried like this before. I broke down in quite a literal sense. The only thing I was somehow able to do was to call my best friend but when she picked up, I just cried to the phone, unable to form coherent words or sentences.

Without hesitation, she rushed to my place to make sure I was OK. Unable to explain what happened with my own words, I showed her the post. She spent the night at my house to keep me company but we barely spoke a word to each other, as I was incapable to do anything but cry.

The next day was the day of my exam. I managed to show up, but the only thing I put on my answer sheet that day were tears.

Grief.

My best friend provided me with the first help I so desperately needed at the time, but after that, I was left all alone in my grief.

My group of friends outside of university didn’t know Jay and most of them weren’t even aware that I was seeing someone. When they learned about what happened, they offered their condolences but that was it. What do you even say or do when your friend is going through something like this? I wouldn’t know either.

My friends from the student organization were focused on other things than making me feel better. Mainly trying to talk about what happened as little as possible so that the group’s reputation wouldn’t suffer from the incident. I am sure that many people were also deeply affected but nobody wanted to outwardly talk about it, as it was a sensitive topic and lots of blame was going on. They organized a group session with a psychologist for people affected. I chose not to attend. I felt as if I’d be judged as an intruder if I showed up.

I felt like a fraud, an imposter. As if my feelings somehow weren’t valid. As if my sadness was uncalled for and I didn’t have the right to grieve. Who was I anyway? I wasn’t a girlfriend. I wasn’t a close friend, at least not close in the sense that would be seen by others. I wasn’t in his friend group and didn’t know most of those people. I had only known him for about three months. I didn’t even go on the trip.

“Do I even have the right to be affected the way I am?” I thought.

I tried to reach out for help to some of our mutual friends but with no luck. I tried to reach out to my mother, as she is the only person I know who went through something similar, but no luck there either. And when I tried to reach out to my mental health specialist, I was met not only with zero compassion, but highly unprofessional behavior as well.

All that just intensified my already conflicted feelings about the whole thing and made me feel as if I should just “get over it” since it “was none of my business” and I absolutely shouldn’t try to talk about it or confide in anyone.

My grief was accompanied by silence and shame.

I guess what happened to me would be called a relapse. For the previous several months, I was on my medication and working on keeping my mental health in check. After all this went down, no amount of psych meds could keep me calm. I was put on a higher dosage but all that did for me was that when I wasn’t crying, I was asleep.

That went on for over a month. A month of nonstop crying, breakdowns, loneliness, and helplessness. I still had to take my final exams for the semester and although I did try to study, I failed every single one of them, which added fear of the future to my, already extensive, list of things to cry about.

About a month after the accident, after another important exam I blew, I attempted to overdose on pills. I failed at that as well.

Love.

All four of my grandparents and my great-grandmother passed away during my lifetime and while it is always sad to lose a person, nothing in this world can prepare you for losing someone you just saw the night before, young, healthy, and full of life. Especially when that was someone you loved.

But did I really?

I still l don’t know the answer to that. Most likely yes, just not in the typical way we think of love. Above all, he was a friend and sort of a mentor to me, but that’s also not the love I am thinking. I think the right word might be a soulmate, but not in the rom-com sense, rather just someone you don’t always have to be with yet you will somehow always be connected with.

I imagined our little secret romance ending by one of us seeing the other off at the airport as they leave, happy, and with no hard feelings. And then maybe our paths would cross again, maybe not. But I would always know that he’s there, somewhere, and that he cares. I was robbed of that joyful farewell in the worst way possible.

But maybe that’s all loads of nonsense. After all, we tend to only remember the good things about people that are no longer around.

I tend to forget the player behavior I absolutely wouldn’t tolerate now that I am older and wiser. I tend to forget the fact that he didn’t have much going on in life at the time and that my more experienced self probably wouldn’t give him any time of the day. I don’t remember the negatives. But it’s fine. I tend to focus on the parts I loved and admired about him, those that made me open my eyes in many ways and helped forming me into the person I am today.

The Now.

It is going to be four years since the accident. I am now the same age Jay was when he passed and I never thought that I would even live that long. Sometimes I still feel like something’s going to happen to me at any second for no good reason at all.

I also, despite not actually being present at the scene, still suffer from mild flashbacks and ticks that could probably fall under the label of PTSD. I am uneasy around waterfalls, for example, and I suspect that waves making me cry while surfing has something to do with this as well.

Over the years, I tried every single thing I could think of to get closure, from therapy to psychics and “alternative healers” and none of it really helped. The only thing that makes it better is time. I would like to say that I am completely over it now, but in reality, I don’t know.

I go about my daily life, I managed to finish my degree, I traveled, worked, dated, moved countries, even went canoeing and swam under waterfalls as a proof to myself that I could do it. And even though I so desperately wanted to die many times, I dare to say that I lived. But once in a while, I still remember and I cry. I have my own rituals and songs that help me not to forget. Maybe this is the one thing that will keep haunting me forever. Who knows.

For me, this story is what makes me feel most vulnerable and exposed. It reveals my heart bare and naked. It is as sensitive as it gets and I still feel like I’m making a bigger deal of it than it is when I tell it. I’ve only told a handful of people I absolutely trusted until this day.

It wasn’t an easy decision to sell my weakness and vulnerability to Medium for a couple of cents. But the more people I share it with, the less power it holds over me.

And four years later, I feel like I finally need to set free.

*The name has been changed in respect for the deceased