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Alpana Mohapatra’s photostory: Pages to my Old Friend

My dearest Friend,
How have you been?
The world doesn’t feel the same without you here.
It’s been such an overwhelming experience, so many feelings I didn’t know I was capable of feeling.
Grief surrounds me like a heavy blanket, isolating me, shutting me from the outside world..
it weighs me down, making it hard to breathe.
There are days where the sun seems to shine, warming me up to a world that is now new, but it turns around in a split of a second, clouds emerging, leaving me alone in the dark.
Dear friend, life has been different. Whether that different is something I can get used to or not, I’ll only know through the kaleidoscope that this journey is..

and all of a sudden, the world seemed still..
forced to grasp the numbing reality, I feel the ground beneath me slipping away from you..
I’m falling into a void, where every heartbeat, every breath without you, 
shatters me into a million tiny pieces, over and over again…

i see you trying to talk to me through the shadows,
i see you in every reflection, standing beside me, smiling.
i see you running to occupy the empty seat next to me
i see you but i fail to reach you,
you’re here, but you’re also not?
so… where are you?

i try to keep you alive through
our countless photographs together,
through your sent from the scarf that you left behind,
because maybe, just maybe, if i shut my eyes and look up
you’ll just be there…

how could this happen?
why did this happen?
so many questions running through my head, frustration
flowing through my veins
this isn’t your fate, this is injustice.

now I’m just living for the hope of it all
hoping, praying that some day
the pain will disappear away…
(inspired by a lyric from “August” by Taylor Swift)

sometimes i wish I could wish it all away,
one more rainy day without you,
sometimes I wish I could see you one more day,
one more rainy day.
    – Wrecked, Imagine Dragons 

we’re just two ghosts swimming in a glass half empty,
trying to remember what it feels to have a heartbeat.
      - Two Ghosts, Harry styles 

i must be strong, and carry on…
i know i’m in pieces, it’s tearing me up,
but i know, a heart that’s broke, is a heart
that’s been loved..
  – Supermarket Flowers, Ed Sheeran 

Model for the photographer: Rakshitha R

Alpana is a third year biotechnology major, and she has always been extremely passionate about photography, especially portrait photography. Through her photo essay she aims to portray the different emotions that one experiences upon the loss of a dear one, as they explore the five stages of grief- denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. It portrays feelings that accompany such a painful experience, an experience that isn’t as linear as it seems to be, but one that shuttles back and forth between all the different stages described, one that teaches an individual to endure and finally accept a painful reality. 

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