The stories of loss in Destiny 2: Season of the Haunted helped to heal from real pain

gamepur.com:

In week three of Destiny 2: Season of the Haunted, Zavala tries and fails to overcome the grief and pain of losing his son. Crow and Caiatl are focused on their respective issues of shame and anger at their failures, but the pain that Zavala was going through hit me differently. Shortly after arriving back at the H.E.L.M., I listened to the optional dialog at the console near the Crown of Sorrow between Zavala and Amanda Holiday.

Amanda is human, not an immortal Guardian. She lost her parents before she came to the city and told Zavala how it was hard to remember their voices, even though it had only been years, not centuries, since losing them. It took everything I had to hold back my tears, hearing her story — because it had just begun to match my own.

I lost my father late last year and haven’t truly begun to reckon with my own pain. It’s been months since I heard his voice, and the pictures we have around the house are sorry replacements for the real thing. I don’t remember Dad’s voice all that well either. Even though I have a single voicemail from him saved on my phone, I can’t bring myself to listen to it.

Neither Amanda nor Zavala have that luxury, and their pain is old. I’ve been without my father for less than a year, yet these two characters have been grappling with their grief for much longer. It feels somewhat selfish to even compare myself to them or anyone who still feels that level of pain after so much time. 

It is that selfishness that’s pushing me to reconcile my fear of facing my pain with the reality that healing it will take longer than I’d like, and understanding that no one, no matter how strong, can escape their grief.

Destiny 2 is not the