Existential Grief

When the Mind Rejects the Reality of Absence

A Conflict Between Logic and the Heart

This image was generated by Artificial Intelligence by Nawar

Between the Truth of Death and the Majesty of Remaining.

​For a long time, I have looked at death from behind a separating glass; a passing scene in the lives of others, a universal truth that logic accepts coldly, and the mind understands as an integral part of the cycle of existence. I used to think — with the arrogance of one who has not experienced it — that I understood the meaning of departure. However, when death intruded into my own private circle, when it stole from my world a friend who was not merely a passerby, all the rules of perception for me were broken.

​The Sharp Division

​A sharp division occurred within me; my heart is drowned in eternal grief that does not miss the compass of loss, while my mind stands frozen, rejecting the principle from its foundation. I am not only facing sadness; I am facing “impossibility.” My mind refuses to translate a person’s absence into “nothingness,” it refuses to close their file in my memory, as if thought is incapable of grasping a void left by someone who was filled with impact.

​After a whole year of that absence, my mind still practices the rituals of denial. I am not stupid, and I know very well that death is a truth, but my mind treats this reality as a “software bug” in the system of life. How could a person who was here, filling the place with noise and presence, suddenly turn into just a “memory”? Logic says yes, but consciousness insists that there is a hidden continuity that only the heart sees.

​Loss as an Existential State

​This rejection is not a weakness, but a noble defense. We refuse to grasp loss because we realize, deep within ourselves, that those we love cannot be reduced to a “body” to perish. We refuse to believe in death because their images, voices, and details still occupy space in our minds, so how can the space remain reserved for “nothing”?

​It is the dilemma that cannot be solved:

​The Heart: It grieves because it realizes the emptiness.

​The Mind: It rejects because the idea of loss contradicts the depth of the impact the friend left.

​When “Time” Becomes the Medicine

​We might think that one day we will reach a deep understanding or a complete grasp of this rift caused by loss, but the truth might be simpler and harsher at the same time: the only medicine for this division is the days, it is time.

​Time is not because it erases the pain, but because it rearranges the chaos within our minds. With the days, the mind will stop trying to “digest” the idea by force, and the heart will begin to adapt to the absence of presence, compensating for it with a presence in memory.

​In the end, perhaps we do not need to “understand” death to live, but we only need to give ourselves enough time to get used to its impact. Your struggle today between mind and heart is not a problem that needs an immediate solution, but rather a journey that time will pave to become part of your human maturity. One day, you will realize that you did not overcome the loss through logic, but you overcame it through the days that made “absence” part of the features of your life that you can live with, in greater peace.

​”In your opinion, do we really forget when time passes, or do we only learn how to make absence part of the details of our daily lives?”

© 2026 Nawar. All rights reserved.

New Literary Society