No matter who dies
Some distant relative, a friend’s aunt, the old school’s lab assistant, Satish Kaushik or someone random on the internet
No matter how I find out about it
An “om shanti” message on WhatsApp family group, the news app on my phone, mumma’s awkward call or dad’s “please share your deepest condolences with the kids” text
No matter how much time has passed
No matter where I am in life
Every time I hear of death,
I relive the day you left us.
Thats a lie
I relive the day you went to the hospital
And the day after when I called you to say come home soon
And the day after when I was informed they were putting you on a ventilator
And then the next horrid morning when mumma’s call woke me up
I relive all this in a second’s time
Remember how you would always say my brain runs too fast?
Yeah, I wish it didn’t sometimes
I relive finding your husband on the hospital staircase
A huge man I have grown up seeing stand tall like a wall
He looked so tiny curled up on the large hospital stairs
No one knew what to do or what to say
I relive the moment I walked up to him and said “its okay, we’ll be okay’
What was I thinking?
Who says that? To a man who just lost the love of his life?
I relive the days that came after
When they put up a big picture of you on the wall
I was eating dinner, I couldn’t swallow the bite I was chewing
Or when dad asked me to order sandalwood mala for it
I relive those six months when the family had no idea what to do but
We were still doing something to survive
As if the world was moving and so were our hands and legs
But our brains and hearts were frozen in the morning of April 30th
Its going to be two years soon and
Life has really changed since then
I might not have grown taller but my hair is short now and
I have many tattoos
Have become socially awkward suddenly
I live on a different continent
Dad asks for my advice on things now
And I can make rotis on my own
While I still don’t know how to make chai,
I can paint my nails very well
And remember that friend I had once introduced you to?
We don’t talk anymore
Life has really changed,
So have I
I wish you were around to see me in all my glory
But more than that I wish my brain associated you to other things
Like your fake facials
Or the big rangolis outside your house
Or your WhatsApp statuses
Your chai. Your overly sweet, very watery chai
And silly pet names like “bakuuu”
But every time I hear of death,
I feel some shades of pain
Or think about loss,
I think of you
Perhaps because my brain never knew grief like that
And now all grief I will ever experience
Will forever be in comparison to the feeling of losing you.
Losing you has been the single most soul-shattering and eye-opening experience of my life
It is as if I went to bed a different Jasmita on the night of April 29th, 2021
And woke up a different Jasmita the next morning
You have taken pieces of me
With you, forever
And thats okay
Because I needed space to carry pieces of you and your legacy in me anyways
I miss you kiya, every day
Thank you for choosing us as your family in this lifetime