When someone leaves a marriage, a job, or a country, an unwritten rule takes away their right to grieve. People tell them, “Hey, it was your choice to leave.” True, but the leaving only happens when the staying cannot, isn’t it?
No one gets into a marriage thinking they want to leave it, unless it’s a sham wedding agreed upon by both parties. No one leaves a job if their boss is kind, the grind is light, and the growth is right. And no one ever leaves a country they’re born in if they are treated as first-class citizens.
The pain it takes to leave the familiar behind heaves a ghastly wound in the initiator, the person who walks away, the one who applies to a new role, or the one who hires an immigration consultant. I don’t know if that wound ever heals fully on the other side, in their greener pastures.
Denying them the right to grieve is an injustice that goes unnoticed, unfelt, and unheard. Revocation of this right is so certain that even the initiator starts to question their right to grieve: “I left; I threw it all away. Grief doesn’t belong to me.” So, they go on like they bear no wounds, and they keep themselves busy like they’re saving the world.
But in the wee hours, the wounds start churning and burning. The blood oozes out of nowhere until they cannot ignore the pain. Until they claim their right to grieve, whether people like it or not.
