Suzanne Bernert

When will this pain get less? When will I stop crying from morning till night? When will I be able to look back and be grateful for what we had? I wish we could have talked about how it was to loose Manju...and your brother... and your parents. I was with you when Mom left us but i didnt understand that pain that time ...i was still innocent in tbe ways of loss.Loss of a deeply loved person. I want to talk to you to understand how to move ahead in life. I am missing your insights and your deep knowledge about life. Your guidance and your love. Its going to be a year soon but it feels like yesterday that I touched your curls at the back of your neck in the ambulance on the way to your cremation. I loved everything about you. And you took our old life with you in the flames of your pyre.

Only people who have lost know what it feels like. Once you have crossed to the other side there is no return. I think it is a blessing not to know what is behind the curtain of losing a loved one. It's a rite of passage and it will come sooner or later in your life. Social media has made us grow closer in many ways and we can pour our hearts out and share happiness and sadness equally. I have seen more posts about loss after Akhil left. I guess I am seeing them more as I can feel and resonate with what the partner left behind is writing ... Wonderful farewell letters full of love, pain and everyone asks : how to move on... While I navigate through my own path of grief and new hope I feel that everyone's way is a different one. There is no solution, there is no sure cure and there is definitely not a : only this or that way! 

  I keep on bumping into the sharp edges of our memories together..hoping that time will make them round and smooth and happy as we were happy... desperately wanting to look back and smile seeing you smile back at me .. holding on to my new reality, grasping for the hand of the one who loves me now.. who let's me cry and grieve for you and gives me hope and love for the new "us"... Moving forward hand in hand. 

The amount of tears I am crying in the backseat of cars while old Hindi songs play..Akhil used to sing and he did it so well..O Mere Dil Ke Chain, a Song by Kishore Kumar keeps on playing on the radio wherever I am and the raw pain hits me ...never will I hear him sing again while he is driving us home from a shoot or meeting ... The love for those songs he gifted me...I just wish I would have listened more,learned even more from him.... Kishore Kumar's  Mere Sapno Ki Rani we used to sing together...and he had such fun movements and expressions...not while driving of course... Rhim Jhim is the first song I kind of learned... Now Monsoon is coming and he isn't here to sing with me... Mere Naina Sawan Bhadon

Every step I took in Bharat you were by my side. Every holiday in Germany you were there with me. Now I am walking those roads alone with your memory by my side. The biggest ups and downs personally and in my career you were there. It is difficult to make people understand that we were not close but one. And it is time to move on... having to remind myself that I am not leaving you behind, that I didn't abandon you but that I am building upon what we had. What made me into me ... Walking new roads...making new memories. Not alone but with someone by my side who loves me. Am blessed that we found each other without searching  I need to go on to stay alive. Building a new life as my old one is completely gone except for a few very good friends that are like family. Abandoned by many, helped by cherished few ones.  To new beginnings... And new love ❤️ 

 In a world that's so much for equality and awareness of gender,sexuality and the diverse field of pronouns I often wonder about something totally different.All that yelling and shouting about getting pronouns right and then I look around and see completely different problems... Problems we all have,all go through,all need to know how to handle ... I feel like we are all not equipped how-to be empathic, how to understand someone else's problem and circumstances...how to navigate sickness,mental issues,death in all its different forms.. be it sudden or drawn out ... how to be when a loved one is dying bit by bit every day.. what to say to a woman who lost her baby before it was born...how to be open and there for someone else without hurting so much. How not to be flippant, how to listen and actually understand what the other person is saying.Most of the time we are caught up in our own lives and dramas and yes...that's important as we live here,now,and in this society... Bu...