Essay: The Things We Bury

Sumit Singla shares a poignant essay on grief, taking us through its various stages and how it engulfs us to an extent that it becomes our identity.

I buried it on a Tuesday.

The soil was still soft from last week’s rain (or my tears), and the tree whose name I don’t know had dropped its first set of white blossoms for the season. It felt appropriate that my words should rest where you once did. Where your soft body once pressed into the earth, still and warm and far too quiet.

I had written the letter in pieces, on mornings that ached, on afternoons that burnt into my soul, and on nights drenched in tears. Even after being written, it sat folded inside a small box I hadn’t been able to open for months. Inside the box were things unremarkable to anyone else but treasures to me – a worn scrap of cloth, a small tag, a piece of wood. Meaningless little artifacts, with the faintest scent of something, someone familiar.