Dear papa,

I miss you a lot. Not everyday. In fact it catches me unawares and when it does its very gripping.
I have been meaning to write to you. I turned 36. Life has been fun. There were some decidedly high points in life and even though the day was exhausting I wanted to talk to someone and I was not able to figure out who is it that would have completed my day...

Until I realized I wanted to recount it all with you. Hear your voice and answer your questions and tell you how it all was.

This loss can be very paralyzing and the pain in that moment of realization is very acute and debilitating. Mostly because it is so final.

Till later.
With all my love
Chuti muti

Dear Papa,

There are so many people in the world that are alive but not you.

It is as stark as that.

I was feeding the first mango of the season to Mehr, just as you used to. I teared up.

I was listening to some songs and Mehr asked me to sing some song and I started and then my throat clogged and I choked on it.

Now you live in my memories. They come to me just as my kids do. Randomly and without notice. Sometimes they come running like Mehr or crawling like Dhruv and demand attention. Sometimes I have the luxury of time and sometimes not but that does not stop the onslaught.

Dhruv is One today. There is so much that is that I want to talk about with you. I have these conversations in my head. I forget if they are with me or with you. When it is all in your head it gets difficult to keep that straight.

Am I some of you? Or what I learned from you? Or what I can tie back to our memories together? Is that what immortality is about? Leaving pieces of yourself in people whose lives you touch?

There is very little in my life that I can not trace back to you. It all is mixed up jumbled up into a web together. Messy and tangled but very warm and snug all together.

Love

Me

Papa,

Today it is snowing here and I was out walking with Mehr enjoying the white pristine. There was a rush of memories about Dalhousie. About times gone by and about opportunities lost about time not spent well enough. Why  do I only have regrets when I think about you and how you are not here.
I want to talk about curtains and Mehr and Dhruv and the house and my aspirations and ambitions and things that are going right and things that are not.
You know I rarely watch cricket now. I rarely listen to songs that I have come to associate only with you. There is so much that I associate in my life with you. You introduced me to so much that I now enjoy.

I love you and I should be glad to have had you for as long as I did. May be this was all that there could be. But I still yearn for more. I hope you are happy and peaceful where ever you are. I hope you can see me, us and all that we are bumbling in and out of in our daily lives.

I will always love you. And I am coming to terms with the fact that I will always miss you and have these regrets.

Love
Chuti-muti  

Its been three years.
Things have not gotten any easier but I have gotten better at hiding it.
I have learned how to resolve that knot in my throat without crying as release.
How to blink away tears before they gather in my eyes.
How to talk on the phone without missing a note with tears streaming down your face.
How to talk to Mehr about you without the fear of breaking down.
Letting her in on some of my sadness and longing.
Telling her how much you would have loved her, her incessant chatter, her never ending linked questions.
I remember how your hands felt the last time I touched them.
I still remember and castigate myself for not going straight to the hospital from airport. You stopped talking a couple of hours before I met you. which was a good 6-7 hours after I landed in B'lore.
All the times when I fought with you and all the times that I no longer can.
All the times that we spent together and all the times that I can no longer.
You have not seen Dhruv or have you? Why is that such a thing in my head?

I want you back here in my life, I want to hear your smile when I talk to you in your voice. I want to hold your hand and feel its vastness and warmth.

I love you and I will always miss you.