grief isn't linear.
Seven years ago, I lost my best friend, Ife. Seven whole years! That number feels both impossibly long and startlingly short, depending on the day you ask me. I wasn’t quite sure the direction I wanted this piece to go when I first thought about it; however, this isn't going to be a "here's how I healed" piece, but rather a "here's how I'm still living with this" piece.
People say time heals all wounds, but I've learned that's not quite right. Time doesn't heal grief so much as it teaches you to carry it differently. Some days, the weight feels lighter, woven so seamlessly into who I've become that I barely notice it. Other days, it sits heavy on my chest like it did in those first weeks after Ife’s death. I still remember clearly the details of the events from that day. Where I was when I got the call, and my reaction afterwards. It was a warm evening in May 2018 at Eko Hotels, Lagos. I felt pain in its rawest form; an alien feeling ‘cause I’d never lost anyone that close to me before, and I did not know how to deal with it. I couldn’t sleep, eat, or function properly. I did not know how to live life without my best friend. It was a few weeks before the end of my internship in Lagos, and I had quite a bit of time to kill before heading back to school. He was coming back to Lagos from school, we had an itinerary of activities planned out; places we wanted to visit, movies we wanted to see, and foods we were going to try. But those plans would never come to pass
Ife had this laugh that would fill a room before you even saw him. He was the kind of person who remembered the small things - your favourite coffee order, the story you told him three months ago about your sister, the way you liked your eggs.
He'd playfully call me "iyawo mi" with this grin that let you know he was being both affectionate and slightly ridiculous. He had opinions about everything and the energy to defend them, but somehow never made you feel small for disagreeing. We could talk for hours about nothing and everything, the way only best friends can.
Nothing prepares you for the silence where someone's voice used to be. Nothing prepares you for reaching for your phone to text them about something funny you saw, only to remember they won't text back. Nothing prepares you for the weight of knowing the last thing someone said to you was "I love you," and how that can feel like both a gift and a wound that never quite heals. I still have that text. I've read it a thousand times.
I used to think grief followed some kind of logical progression; that I'd move through the stages like checking items off a list, yunno ‘denial, anger’, eventually arriving at "acceptance" and staying there. But grief isn't a project you complete. It's more like weather, sometimes sunny, sometimes stormy, often unpredictable. Seven years later, I can be listening to a song we used to play on repeat, Hozier’s ‘Take Me To Church', or catch a glimpse of someone who walks or laughs like Ife did, and suddenly I'm crying in a bathroom at work.
For a long time, I felt guilty about this. Shouldn't I be "over it" by now? Shouldn't the sharp edges have worn smooth? I measured my healing against society's timelines, against what seemed normal or expected. But grief isn't interested in our schedules or society's comfort with sadness.
On the days when I miss him most, I find myself scrolling through his Instagram page, looking at his old pictures and reading old messages and I study his face, trying to imagine what he'd look like now; how he might have changed, what new expressions would have joined his repertoire of smiles, if he’d have finally grown a beard. Sometimes this brings comfort; sometimes it makes the ache sharper. But I keep doing it anyway, because it's one of the few ways I can still visit him.
Continuing to grieve someone doesn't mean you're stuck or broken. It means you loved them. The grief is proportional to the love, and Ife deserved all the love I had to give. He still does.
Some days I feel him with me in small ways, in the way I approach a problem he would have found interesting, or when I laugh at something he would have found hilarious. Other days, his absence feels fresh and startling, like walking into a room and forgetting the furniture has been rearranged.
The truth about grief is that it's not a problem to be solved. It's love with nowhere to go, and maybe that's okay. Maybe the goal isn't to stop missing someone who mattered so much, but to learn how to carry that missing with grace.
I've stopped trying to graduate from grief. Instead, I've learned to let it exist alongside joy, hope, and all the other emotions that make up a life. I can miss Ife desperately and still feel grateful for the years we had. I can wish he were here to see who I've become, while also knowing that his influence helped shape that person in profound ways.
Ife would have had something to say about this post. He probably would have made fun of me for getting too philosophical. Scratch that! He would have laughed hysterically and then told me he was proud of me for writing it anyway. He always knew when to tease and when to be tender, when to push and when to hold space.
I still haven't gotten over losing him. Seven years later, I don't think I'm supposed to. Some losses change the shape of your life permanently, and that’s not pathology, that's love. Grief isn't linear because love isn't linear. Both spiral and return, deepen and surprise, leave us changed in ways we're still discovering.
Ife, wherever you are: thank you for the laughter, the late-night conversations, the way you saw the world and helped me see it too. Thank you for being the kind of friend who leaves a mark that time can't erase. The grief I carry for you is heavy some days, but I carry it gladly. It's the last gift you gave me; proof of how much our friendship meant.
Seven years, and counting. Not counting down to when I'll stop missing you, but counting up all the ways you're still here.
Here’s to my best friend, Sanni Ifedolapo Caleb. Forever missed, forever loved 🕊️❤️
