Story by Linda Yun
Editor-in-Chief

I’ve always been fortunate to have four living grandparents. Throughout childhood, I’ve clung to my family with pride. I often remember proudly yet subtly announcing to my friends that I was FaceTiming my grandparents who live in China, feeling like a pious granddaughter who stayed in touch with family despite an ocean of distance. When you make it to 17 without losing a loved one, you feel as though death transcends you.

Last month, right before Lunar New Year, I received news that my paternal grandmother passed away. She was in her mid 80s; It was apparently painless and “perfectly predictable.” Yet, despite the normalcy of her passing, I was shaken. 

There are many sides to grief: emotional, social, physical. However, one perspective is often neglected: how death forces you to grapple with faith. 

Over winter break, I met up with Hanna over tea to catch up — she had fresh new experiences in college, I went through the trials and tribulations of senior year. Among the things we talked about was religion. From my observations, it seems as though people turn to faith in large masses as they begin to live on their own and process unforeseen emotions.

This makes sense, especially as the stability of faith attracts people who are uncertain about their futures. Though I was raised Christian, I was never to fully empathize with needing an omniscient figure to lean on, since my days were mapped with plans and I had the privilege of a stable upbringing. However, as my schedule opens up with senior year, I’ve begun to ask myself curious questions about the future that I’ve sought to avoid for most of my high school years. Why do I do what I do? What should I do with my time when it no longer needs to be spent appeasing admissions? 

When I experienced loss for the first time in January, this curiosity turned morbid. Since I never had to grapple with death, I began to challenge my own beliefs. All my life I’ve believed in life after death, but how can we be certain? 

In a way, I’m grateful that I experienced loss so late in my life. Speaking to friends who’ve lost loved ones as a kid, it seems that parents try to conceal the permanence of the loss, and children never get to honestly process the idea of mortality. As confusing as it was at the moment, I think this event has humbled me into understanding that my family isn’t invincible as I once believed. People across generations and religions have looked for ways to make sense of death: Buddhists aim to reach nirvana; Christians, Jews, and Muslims want the door to heaven. People across centuries want to preserve the image of youth: the conquistadores drank from the Fountain of Youth; endless makeup brands advertise miracle serums so women can look young forever. All of these attempts stem from a fundamental understanding that, no matter if you believe in higher power or not, there is no physical forever — at least not on Earth. 

As my family shut down Lunar New Year celebrations to grieve my grandmother’s passing and silence loomed over the dinner table in her absence, I’m reminded of the value of reunions like this. It is a cruel kind of selfishness, I realize, to believe that the people we love will always remain — that time will not inevitably take them from us. The clichés remain unchanged: all we can do is hold on while we can, leave nothing unsaid nor unlived. I’ve spent a year meaning to buy a digital camera. Maybe I’ll start there.