The Day Lunch Didn’t Matter

Lunch breaks are usually the only real “me time” I get. I normally spend them doom scrolling or rewatching a comfort series I’ve already seen. I am one of the few people who go to lunch early to avoid the crowd, so the cafeteria is usually half empty. The housekeeping staff would just be setting up the vessels, barely beginning to fill the food counters.

Ever since the rise of TVK, I’ve often overheard playful banter between the housekeeping akkas about TVK and DMK politics. I became a silent participant in their conversations. I smile when I agree, make a face when I don’t, and somehow they notice. They smile back, acknowledge me, and sometimes even pull me into their arguments. One akka once told me she supports the new party because her daughter strongly vouched for it.

It quietly became part of my daily ritual.

One afternoon, I saw the same akka near the food counter smiling at me while I was checking the menu and figuring out what to eat. She got a phone call. Within seconds, her expression changed. She looked tense, collapsed, and the phone fell from her hand. I tried to catch her before she hit the ground.

That’s when she started screaming:

“En ponnu…”

A crowd gathered around us. I picked up the phone, trying to understand what had happened. It was her son. He was telling her that his sister — this akka’s daughter — had died. He didn’t explain how.

She cried nonstop for nearly half an hour. Four people held her, but no one could console her. The sound of her crying stayed with me.

I skipped lunch that day and couldn’t stop thinking about it.

The next day during lunch, I came to know what had happened. Her daughter had gone with friends to celebrate a birthday near a lake. While playing near the shore, she was pulled into the water and drowned. It had even made the local newspaper.

I saw the akka again after almost a month.

She was at breakfast, but she looked completely different. She used to be vibrant, funny, full of life. Now she sat staring into nothingness, as though a part of her had gone silent. I could barely bear to see her face so filled with sadness. I skipped breakfast and quietly returned to my seat.

Later that day, during lunch, I saw her again, sitting alone at a table. I could only see her from the back.

Without thinking much, I walked up behind her and hugged her.

She looked up at me, recognized my face, and instantly broke down crying.

And I cried with her.

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to console someone carrying pain that large. Maybe because I am a mother too, I could feel a fraction of her grief. It overwhelmed me.

I told her, “I am here with you. Please ask me if you need anything.”

Then I walked to the restroom to wash my face.

When I came back, she was gone. She must have taken half a day off and left.

Since then, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.

Should I not have approached her? Did I unintentionally make her cry again when she was trying so hard to hold herself together?

And strangely, I feel guilty.

Guilty for making her cry again.

“Grief” is such a short word for something so enormous. How do people even deal with it? We rarely get to witness it because grief is deeply personal, and most people carry it quietly, behind closed doors.

Maybe I didn’t make her cry again.

Maybe I simply witnessed a grief that never really stopped.

But even now, I can’t shake her face from my mind.