Good grief: love you the most by naina

I was never prepared for how much Grief would effect my adult life. I didn’t know she’d sit on my shoulder and braid herself into my hair. I wasn’t ready for her to show up and hold my hand in the middle of a Trader Joe’s frozen meal aisle on a Sunday. I think I tried to outrun her for a majority of my adolescence. I feel like Grief is a Medusa, a creature we ignore, fear, and misunderstand because she’s….ugly.

I imagine my Grief to look like a wild, filthy, uncontrollable version of my younger self. An absolutely ferocious version of 6 year old Ruth with missing teeth, dirty fingernails, matted, messy hair, and ripped clothes. I think a lot of us fear Grief because she is ungovernable. She’ll show up unannounced and dirty your clean floors. She cries in public and, ugh, it is so embarrassing! She is not quiet or demure or mindful. She is not glamorous, or graceful and she loves, above all else, to remind us that we are not immortal. (That’s Grief’s favorite thing to talk to me about late at night. Together, we grieve the time I don’t have anymore and took for granted.)

Right now, it feels like a lot of us are experiencing a collective grief. We’re mourning what we could have had, where we could have been, and who we could have been. We’re out here grieving our previous bodies, that have changed with age and experiences, we’re grieving losses, we’re grieving the end of season 1 of The Pitt.

It’s heavy! What I’m trying to remember, is that Grief is an echo of Love. Grief only exists because once upon a time, Love existed in that same space. (Shoutout to Andrew Garfield and Wanda Vision for giving us great cultural touch stones of new ways to frame our thinking of our girl Grief.)

In 2023, Naina was also grappling with her own version of Grief after losing her Grandmother. Naina’s family was fueled by their matriarch, and losing her left a space that only Grief could fill. Naina’s Grandma had grit and was tough enough to raise 9 children on a farm in South America, but she was also soft enough to recite stories back to you memorizing every detail while also threading a needle without looking at it. You know, the most magical kind of Grandma.

Naina’s Grandmother.

Naina found herself searching through old boxes of birthday cards, looking for pieces of her Grandmother after she passed. Or, sitting in her car and crying while listening to a song that reminded her of her Grandma. Rather than harden and turn away from her Grief, Naina grabbed her Grief by the hand and took her into a recording studio, which resulted in her latest song “Love you the most”.

“Love you the most” starts out with a dreamy like sound, inviting us into these intimate moments Naina has with her Grief. If you’ve been a reader/follower of mine for a minute, you know I am a sucker for an acoustic guitar and my thesis is that an acoustic guitar inherently invites intimacy for the listener (looking at you Harry Styles). This instrumentation accompanied by Naina’s gentle, warm vocals are the perfect pairing. Around the 45 second mark, the vocal line swells in what feels like an outpouring of aching nostalgia, truly like a wave of grief that hits you in those unexpected, quiet moments. We also start to hear a pedal steel in the background that at first, begins quietly reinforcing the vocal line, but then eventually becomes it’s own kind of weeping chorus throughout. I love the doubling of the vocal line in the chorus, because musically, it doesn’t feel like Naina’s holding the grief on her own, but more like sharing it with every version of herself that was and is to come. I also am obsessed with the slight tension and little vocal jump on “sometimes things are lost”, almost like that vocal line is searching for what’s been lost. Lyrically this song is simple and accessible. Naina is actually letting you enter into these mourning moments with her, she’s not hiding behind metaphors. Finally the song blossoms in a Phoebe Bridgers kind of delicate way around the 2:50’ mark and it leads to Naina knowing that even though Grief will color the rest of her life and every song she’ll ever write, she’ll be fine.

“I’ll still love you the most
More than the size of the planets combined
More than all the stars in the galaxy if you put them in a line
More than every single song I’ll ever write
I will be fine, fine”

When I spoke with Naina about this song, and the upcoming EP ‘The Bee’ that she’ll be releasing later this year, there were many mentions of finally finding “her sound” and feeling grounded in these songs artistically. Naina credits this to a few things, one of which being the group of musicians she collaborated with while recording. Naina invited all of them into some of her most vulnerable moments and together they were able to create something that feels universal. I think “Love you the most” is an incredible entry point to what I can only imagine will be a devastating, yet beautiful EP.

The album artwork is also something I am deeply moved by. Ally Crupi created the artwork (and a pretty cool animation). The idea, as Naina explained it to me, is that the rocking chair, a symbol of time passing, sits in a room warmed by the sun, looking out a window. This image and feeling is supposed to represent how when a person passes, or leaves your life, you can still find and feel the warmth they’ve left behind.

While I find myself sitting in my own rocking chair, watching time pass, I find that the best tool I have to use on the days when Grief is at her worst is Gratitude. How lucky am I to have a life that brings me grief? How lucky am I to bear the burden of Grief, knowing that the weight she carries is only equal to the love I have shared and cultivated?

“Sometimes love can lose a home,
Sometimes things are lost.
It hurst real bad,
but soon it won’t,
I hope
I still love you the most.”

I also hope that through whatever changes, whatever challenges, and whatever hurt I still find ways to love myself, my people, my community, and everything else the most.

You can stream “Love you the most” now and you can find Naina on instagram and TikTok.