I didn’t realize grief could arrive in layers — one still forming while the next begins to settle. This year, I find myself holding three kinds of goodbye: the kind that’s slow and visible, the kind that returns quietly, and the kind that disappears overnight.
Our family cat died last week. No drama, no buildup — just the quiet end of a life that gave us more than we realized. We adopted him in late 2018, and for a while, he was mine — my baby, my shadow, my soft little anchor. I moved out in 2020, but he stayed with my family, quietly claiming every corner of the house as his kingdom. In the past month, his health declined fast — I knew it, I saw the signs — but still, the finality hit harder than I thought it would. My brother comforted him during his last hours, stayed with him through the final breath, then spent two days mourning in his room. Some people say, “It’s just a cat.” But they don’t get it. For us, we were his whole world. For seven short years, we were everything he had—and he gave us everything back, without question.
My father-in-law is fading.
We’ve only met a handful of times—my wedding, a few family visits to the States, my sister-in-law’s celebration, and this summer, while he and my mother-in-law stay in our home. We’re not especially close. We don’t talk much. There’s no long history between us, no deep rituals. I am his daugther-in-law that lives across contingent and across time zones separated by day and night. And yet, watching him now—softening, slowing, slipping—presses against my chest in a way I can’t ignore.
He still jokes. Still smiles. Still shows up at the table. But the man beneath the gestures is thinning. Not in body, necessarily—but in presence. In how long he can stay in the room before his body gives out. In how many steps he can take before the wheelchair becomes the only option. In how many words he can get through before his speech begins to blur. The shape of him is still here, but the edges are dissolving.
I’ve tried to understand what’s happening—the diagnosis, the disease, the timeline. I thought knowing the facts would help me hold it better. But instead, all it’s done is drain the illusion that there might be more time than there really is. The truth doesn’t prepare you. It just takes away the comfort of not knowing.
And still—it breaks me in a way I can’t explain. Maybe because I’ve seen him laugh with my husband in the kitchen. Maybe because we agree and his wife-my mother-in-law & my husband are the other version of Sheldon-who doesn't like their food touches to each other. Maybe because he watches our cats with soft eyes and a tired kind of delight. Maybe because Georgie brought a leave and put it in front of his door while he stayed at the hospital. Maybe because even in his weakened body, there is effort, and love, and intention. He’s trying to stay in the world, even as the world quietly lets go of him.
And I… I’m trying to memorize the way his voice still sounds, how his hands still move. I’m trying to slow down time just enough to notice him. Not as a father figure. Not even as family, in the traditional sense. But as someone who’s leaving—and who might be gone before my future children even know his name. Like I know my dad's father through the stories.
And then there’s my mother.
We don’t have the diagnosis yet, not officially. Just quiet suspicions, ambiguous scans, and that particular kind of silence where everyone is trying not to name the thing they fear most.
But if the cancer’s back—she’s already made peace with it.
Not in the dramatic, movie-ending way. Just… plainly. In her voice, in her posture, in the way she slices mangoes and folds laundry and plans her next little trip like nothing’s changed.
She told me, “Kalau memang waktunya, ya sudah. Mau ngumpet pun nggak akan bisa. Tapi kalau belum, ya Allah nggak akan jemput. Jadi dinikmati saja.”
If it’s time, it’s time—even if you try to hide, you can’t outrun it.
But if it’s not, then God won’t come just yet.
So enjoy what you’re given.
That’s how she lives—choosing joy without denying fear. She still laughs. Still worries about me eating enough. Still chooses the cake over the clean test results. I hate the fact that she doesn't like the idea of bothering someone and trying to make herself small and low effort aka. someone who were easy to be with. And somehow, that steadiness breaks me in a different way—because while my father-in-law is slowly being taken, my mother is gently handing her time over.
And I wonder—will my future children get to know them like this?
Will they hear my mom laugh too loudly in the kitchen? Will they see my father-in-law’s quiet strength and dry wit? Will they feel the warmth of the people who shaped my world—or will they only meet them through stories?
I don’t know.
And that not-knowing has become its own kind of grief.
I didn’t expect to be standing in this space just yet—between what’s still here and what’s already slipping away. But here I am. Loving people whose names I may one day say in past tense. Missing a cat I still check the corners for. Holding conversations I know I’ll replay later, when their voices have softened in memory.
And maybe this is what adulthood really is:
Learning to hold love and loss at the same time—without rushing either.
Letting joy live beside the ache.
Letting memory bloom before absence even arrives.
Not choosing between grief and gratitude—but carrying both, like two hands outstretched toward the people we love, before they’re gone.
“Just as hate knows love’s the cure
You can rest your mind assured
That I’ll be loving you always.”
— Stevie Wonder,
For everyone I’m already beginning to miss, even as you’re still here.
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