Feeling the void

When we passed by his bedroom, we would all comment on how odd it was to see it so bare. At first, when you walked into his room, it looked like nothing. The emptiness felt weirdly spacious and grand, and when the windows were open, his room became a great big bowl of light. The rays vaulted themselves into the space, bouncing off the edge of his desk, streaking his pillow and soaking the floors. The room would be cast with a watery glow, and this was when absence began to assume a material form, when what was no longer there became visible. There were no tubs of lotion or hair gel on top of the drawers. No jackets in the closet. His desktop was completely cleared. 

One day, I decided to study in his room, just for a change of scenery. I put my laptop on his desk and plugged my chargers in his outlets. Later, my mom came into his room to vacuum the floors because dust doesn’t know when a person isn’t home anymore. Eventually, my dad entered to fix the broken door handle my brother was always complaining about.

We all worked silently, because there was nothing to say when we were in this room that we hadn’t said before. We left the conversation to the whirring of the vacuum, the clacking of my keyboard, and the creaking of my father playing with the door. 

For a moment, everything felt foreign — all three of us being in here. But then the day flowed back into itself. That day, at that moment, a form of repopulation took effect. By going into his room — whether it was motivated by boredom, obligation or something entirely different — the space filled up once again.

There have been two instances in my life recently where I’ve felt as if I could measure grief, where I saw the shape of emptiness. The first time was when my brother left for college. The second time is one I am grappling with now: preparing to leave for college myself.

Grief is funny in the way it often happens before the actual loss does. I’m still eating my mom’s home-cooked dinners. I’m still sleeping in the same bed I’ve slept in for the past 18 years. I’m still home. 

In my favorite poem, “Obit” by Victoria Chang, she describes how she realized that grief was “never a noun, but a verb. That it moves.” This kinesthetic, preemptive sadness is beginning to realize itself in my own life. I can see it through the car window while driving on Belmont roads I’ve known all my life. I can smell it in the beef noodle soup my mom makes in her Instant Pot. I can feel it when I’m tucked in my bed, rubbing the soft side of my favorite violet blanket between my fingers, thinking about how I won’t be able to take this queen-sized warmth with me to college.

There’s not much to say about this understanding of grief, of impending, anticipatory loss. But what I will say is that I’m finding a unique sense of content in just how much I have to miss. I’ve said it before in a previous column, but grief really is one of the most powerful and meaningful stages of love. As I experience all these moments of fondness — for giant blankets, home-cooked meals and suburban roads — I realize I have so much love to bring with me to college, and when I think back to that moment when my parents and I were all back in my brother’s room, I know how much of that love is at its best when shared.

Naomi Hsu is a senior at Carlmont High School in Belmont. Student News appears in the weekend edition. You can email Student News at news@smdailyjournal.com.