Grief is such an unpredictable concept. I’d like to think of mine like a scab of a wound - a sign of healing. There are days when I forget it’s there and then, oneday I’m pulling on a jersey and the pieces of wool catch on the scab, triggered - it starts bleeding again; taking me back to the day the wound was inflicted. I was so stupid to believe we had all the time in the world. My grief covered the few people who cared enough to listen like a blanket. To this day, my children call me to “come see your friend on TV” and I still react to this loss with a befitting knee jerk. Then, it’s 16:30 on the 5th of May 2024 again. I get deeply embarrassed when I realise that memories of our last lunch are slowly leaving me, mainly because I haven’t been the person you left for a very long time. The conversation I can’t recall. What you wore. What I wore. What the weather was like. If I knew that was the last time, I would have taken every single thing in. Alas, the only thing I recall is that we spent hours at Guilt & Co. even when we both had more important things to do. You would’ve loved Brunch With Tsholo but you would have loved the person it made me even more. I get it now. Why you always pushed everyone around you to chase after their goals, living your dream life is enough when it’s all you have and I finally understand your contentment with the life God gave you. You had absolutely no reason to hold back in a world that tells everyone to. I know you went back home with an empty heart. My grief is just love and good conversation with nowhere to go. I still can’t watch your shows yet they’re the only tangible proof I have that you existed - “Look. I’m not crazy. This is who I lost. He wasn’t a figment of my imagination”. But as the years go, I’m starting to feel like I’m mourning the concept of you because your reality isn’t here to hold. I want to stop falling apart randomly on my 6AM run and while I’m making breakfast and when I wake up in the middle of the night, but where do I put the memories and the grief I carry? Where does all this love go, Mpho Sebeng?