A few years ago, I received news of a professor’s passing in the most bizarrely impersonal way we tend to receive news these days: via a twitter mention from a college ex I hadn’t spoken to in years. The memorial service was set for that weekend in Central Massachusetts where he and his family lived. At the time, I was living in Cambridge, which was just a short train ride away. But I never made it past Back Bay.
On the journey over, I felt a quiet uncertainty about whether I belonged. It had been years since I’d graduated. I was never one of his closest students, let alone the type who kept in touch. So instead of attending the service, I hopped off the train and buried my grief in the frosting of a Georgetown cupcake. My partner at the time tried to comfort me with words of wisdom from the Stoics on facing death. “Grief is internal, death inevitable”, he said (or something along those lines). “No ceremony could alter what already was. Your presence wouldn’t have mattered.”
I wanted to believe that. But in time, I grew to regret that decision and developed a fierce contempt for the Stoics, and their intellectualized approach to grief.
This past month, a dear friend of mine passed away in a climbing accident. We lived far away from each other but somehow, we managed to maintain a connection in the way of digital friendships. We followed each other’s stories on Instagram and exchanged countless texts about climbing, programming, and life as a “third culture kid”. Later on, we discovered we shared mutual friends, and it was through them that I first heard of his passing. The last time we talked, he called me on my birthday to wish me, and we spoke of my birthday sends plan (where you climb the number of routes equivalent to your age) which felt rather ambitious given how many years I was celebrating.
There’s a complacency that tends to set in with friends you assume will always be around, especially those who are young and active. Yoseph was only 26 when he passed. We’d talked endlessly about our next climbing trip together, whether that be at the Red in Kentucky or in his chosen hometown, Chattanooga. All those plans have since been cancelled indefinitely—reminders of a future that will never come to be.
His memorial service was held within a week of his passing. This time, I decided to attend no matter how inconvenient it was. I once believed that you had to earn the right to grieve, that “true grief” belonged to those who meant more to the person lost. But standing in that room filled with his friends and family as we celebrated his short but magnificent life, I learnt that grief doesn’t discriminate based on closeness. Grief lies somewhere between lost and found, in spaces unseen where absence and memory intertwine, shaping what remains. A quiet reminder of the impact they had on you. I left that room understanding, finally, that maybe—in the end—showing up is enough and that your presence will always matter.