Only in this morning quiet do the tears come. Images of Papa, Baby Maasi and Bebo flood me and my soul aches. My heart hurts. There hasn’t been a day when I haven’t thought about them. I tell myself time heals, but really all it does is that I don’t speak about them aloud anymore. The silence in my heart suffocates my mind. I wish I knew how to express what it means to lose loved ones in successive order. Each loss a reminder that at end of the day we only get one life to spend with them. Regret chokes me up. So many missed opportunities. So much time with petty anger and frustration instead of loving them in the best way possible.
The worst part is being surrounded by ones who don’t know that feeling and offer platitudes that can never salve my gaping soul. So I wake up everyday and give myself the allowance to miss them fully and know that they loved me with all my flaws. Each morning a new chance to feel gratitude and pain. My own private moment that I chose not to share those close to me.
The words that come to describe the losses small, insignificant to the pain in my heart. Even now. I feel overwhelmed at the grief, and the words do nothing but just make it worse. Yet I get up each day with the hope that at some point it will lessen, then I will be able to look out the kitchen and not see Papa reading the paper, Bebo waiting for her breakfast and my aunt sharing a cup of tea with mom.
So I sit here, aching, hurting, grieving, and then I shake it off and remember them for they always were: joyful, full of curiosity, and always open to sitting down and spending time. And I work to honor their memory, and realize that each day is a chance to remember them.
And so I love their memories, but I ache.
Sanjay Sabarwal's Blog 