How To Bite Back At Grief
An emotional eater's unreliable guide to coping with the loss of a loved one
Grief is weird.
Anyone who has ever grieved the loss of a loved one understands how taxing it is not only emotionally but also physically.
I had not been aware of how physical the act of grieving could be until I experienced it recently with the death of my grandmother who had suffered a stroke and been in a coma for three months.
On top of being overwhelmed with intense emotions, I was also feeling all sorts of physical pain, ranging from tightness in the chest to headaches.
My appetite went haywire, too. But because I knew I could not starve, otherwise my hyperacidity would make things a lot worse, I had to be strategic.
The following are some of the things I resorted to at the height of my grief. Are they reliable? I don’t think so. But then again, desperate times call for desperate measures. I did what I had to do.
Besides, I could not just let grief consume me. I needed to bite back at it and ensure my body could still get the nourishment it needed.
Ask For Food
One of the first things I did after finding out that my grandmother had passed was ask for food.
I no longer remember what I had, but I recall telling my husband that even though I wasn’t in the mood to eat, I knew I had to.
Dying, like most things in life, involves logistics. I was sure we were all going to have a long night. I also expected the next few days to be packed with movements and emotions. Things would be intense.
So, before anything, I had to prepare my body by taking in enough food to get me through what was about to come.
If There’s Nothing To Eat, Ask Anyone To Buy Something
Around midnight, I arrived at the funeral home our family had chosen for the wake. I was with my husband, and we immediately noticed that the table where food and refreshments were supposed to be was empty.
It wasn’t surprising since everyone was still shocked by what had happened. Family members had also been busy making funeral arrangements and getting in touch with other relatives.
Because I was starting to feel sleepy and knew I could not have coffee on an empty stomach, I sent one of my cousins to a nearby Dunkin’ to get coffee and donuts for everyone. He happily obliged, and in less than an hour, he and another cousin were back with two boxes of brewed coffee and a dozen donuts.
The donuts they got did not include any of my favorites since they were no longer available. I did not complain, though. I just needed something to fill my stomach with, and those donuts were perfect for the job.
Talk Even When Your Mouth Is Full
One of the things that helped keep me sane was the support coming from the rest of my family. It also made a lot of difference that we talked a lot about our memories with my grandmother. It made us feel less sad.
Many of these conversations took place while we were snacking on something.
Everyone got the memo that no one could get hungry, as if failure to comply meant being haunted by my grandmother’s ghost. Each time someone would eat, others would follow suit. People would then form a big circle in which they would exchange stories about my grandmother who had had a very rich life.
Good thing, our family is not very strict about keeping one’s mouth shut when it is full. It’s quite the opposite. So, people kept talking even after taking a big bite of whatever they were eating: mamon, pancit, donuts, fries, cup noodles, rice cakes.
Prolong Your Meals
There was a McDonald’s close to the funeral parlor. It became our go-to place whenever craving iced coffee or any fast food classic.
One night, after enduring a long commute from Makati City via an old, shaky UV Express van that seemed like it would fall apart each time the driver hit the brakes, I asked two cousins to accompany me to the said McDonald’s.
There, we spent around an hour just eating and talking. We recalled fond memories with our grandmother, including really funny ones, while sipping a cup each of iced coffee and sharing one BFF fries.
It felt like my grandmother was still alive.
It felt like our stories were keeping her alive.
It felt like the longer we remained there, the longer she kept living.
I will be forever grateful we took our time.
When Things Get Tough, Drink Lots of Coffee
I don’t know why exactly, but it was only the day before the interment that it sank into me that my grandmother had died. When it did, I felt weak. My knees shook and I felt like I was about to collapse.
Of course, I turned to coffee—my go-to drug whenever things seemed to fall apart.
When my husband and I got to Antipolo, where the interment would take place, we searched for a cafe where we could kill time. We still had around four hours to burn before the funeral mass.
We ended up at Ellipsis Coffee along P. Oliveros Street. It was a small cafe with a limited number of seats inside. When we got there, there was a group of professional-looking adults who spoke so loudly about evicting informal settlers from a portion of land that had apparently been under dispute. They were so infuriating. Their comments about the poor made me so angry, but unfortunately, I had no spare energy to say a single thing to them.
I was so overwhelmed by my grief, which was so much bigger than what I knew what to do with. And so I just sipped my iced latte in silence. Luckily, the coffee was good.
A couple of hours before the mass, we decided to move somewhere closer to the cathedral. In short, the Starbucks in Victory Park & Shop.
There, I downed a venti glass of iced caramel macchiato while keeping my tears from flooding the entire cafe.
My efforts were not futile. The coffee did its job, giving me the courage I needed to face the reality—I was now living in a grandma-less world.
When Everything Else Seems To Fail, Make A Sandwich
I was barely functioning after my grandmother was buried. There were times when I simply broke down while attempting to do the most mundane things—showering, eating, scrolling on social media, and trying to fall asleep.
My appetite hadn’t gone back to normal, either, and looking for food to entice me became an even harder chore.
But one day, I just got up and felt like making a sandwich.
I then went to the fridge and retrieved my go-to ingredients: sourdough bread, butter, berry jam, forest ham, and gouda cheese. I prepped everything like I normally would and started heating a pan. Like a machine on autopilot, I did my thing.
Before I knew it, a hot sandwich was right in front of me, waiting to be devoured. I did in no time and thought that wasn’t bad at all. It was a good sign.
Once Things Become A Bit More Bearable, Cook A Simple Pasta Dish
I knew I was finally coping well when I managed to cook my very first pasta dish since my grandmother’s passing. As usual, it was a cacio e pepe—easy to make, even easier to eat.
There was nothing spectacular about the way I prepared it, though, because I was still moving like a zombie.
Still, it was a win for me.
The fact that I now dared to prepare something more than a sandwich was an indication that I was slowly returning to normal programming even though, technically, things would never be the same.