Saying goodbye.

My baby sleeps. It’s 8.47 pm, and after a little bit of fussing, he has fallen so fast asleep. My heart is so full…I feel silly even trying to attempt descriptions of how much joy this guy has brought us, he is just so precious.

Life in October brought us to a bit of a standstill with J & I losing people who we were very close to. My grandfather and his mother. Both in the same month and just weeks before we would have been seeing them in India. Even though we are all equally bound to the destiny of leaving this world behind one day, nothing quite prepares you for the time it actually happens. When the prospect of losing someone becomes a full blown reality, and your heart is left dealing with the aftermath.

My mind kept going back to when covid hit us and we couldn’t travel back to Mumbai. I’d call my grandfather every few days, and he would always understand…don’t worry, just take care of yourselves, it will be ok soon.” He almost never sounded negative, his voice was all calm and all knowing…some part of me would always call him to reach some sort of equilibrium inside my mind. even if I was going through challenges, him saying everything is ok meant everything is….ok.

A month after he’s gone, I feel like his grandeur…his love and joy is more embedded in my being than ever before. There is a sort of calmness and a sorrow that I know will never go away.

Grief is the price we pay for love; and where exactly will all that love go apart from us crying tears, writing eulogies and singing away emotions. They come, time and time again…rising up from the depths. Like a tidal wave and sometimes like a hurricane…reminding me of how much I’ve been loved and how much I love. That many splendoured thing has changed form, yet again, and how…she splashes away in my mind, bringing back memories of a deeply engrossing childhood, complete with happiness and grace, covered with songs, poetry and laughter.

As I grieve, I awaken to my own life, that this sweeping thing called time is calling me, to continue these legacies of love…to rise to the occasion of my own life, to the intricacies of existence in my corner of the universe. Whatever big or small thing that I do, I hope to do it with a lot of love, and a consistently grateful heart for these people who created moments of pure kindness and poetry through their life.