The losses inside the loss

One death takes several things with it, and people rarely count them.

Income. The house. The routine of a Sunday. The person you told things to first. Your standing in a family. A future you had already spent years imagining. If it was a parent, sometimes the family itself, because the person who held everybody together is the person who died.

And there is a particular position that gets no attention at all, which is being the one everybody else leans on. The eldest. The one who arranged the janazah, spoke to the hospital, dealt with the paperwork and made sure everybody ate. That person is often still standing three months later because nobody has ever let them sit down.

If that is you, the marker to watch is simple. Nobody has asked you how you are, and you have stopped noticing that nobody has.