Dear papa,

If there is such a thing as a soul then the part that is exposed to my boss will have so many scars and open wounds on it that it would need to be amputated out. In order for the rest of it to survive. I am tired of having to protect it from the present environment.
I feel let down.I feel cheated out of learning and the training that I deserved. Also for taking this long to figure it all out. I hope when I am in a position of power what would I not like to be. I hope my memory serves me well. And I hope I also have vast reserves of strength to draw from to at least last me another 20 days.
I wish you were here. I wish you could just heal it all with your touch and your words and your voice of perspective. I am beginning to forget what you sound like. I hope there is some connection still active between us. I hope in between all of this I love you and always will.

Someday I would have liked you to see what I have become. Not at a point when I was down but at a point in life that I felt that you would have been proud of me. I now hope that you are watching and looking because that is one of my motivations in life to see pride in your eyes when you look at what I am trying to become. Some day we will trade stories of how life had been after you left. Till then I am going to make careful notes of all things thorough and all things that make me think of you. I want to share my accomplishments with you at some point. For now I am going to work on being accomplished.

Love

When the pain dies down...
It never dies down.

Papa,
It has not died down. Not yet. This pain still holds me and you together. I like holding on to it.

Dear Papa,

Wish me luck! I feel like a bag of nerves.

Love
Chuti-Muti

Dear papa,

The year is coming to an end. In a few days it will be a year since you are gone. It has been that long already. You are gone and life around me has picked itself up and moved on. It would seem I have done the same. Have I? Moved on? From you? I hope not. I have this pain that still connects me with you and its mine for you. I have not reached a place where I can think of you without pain of this loss. I am not sure if such a place exists. I am not sure if it does I can get there, or if I want to.

I wish there was more time for me with you. I don't know who I was being strong for? Last few months together that we spent we ended up being so argumentative. I was on some quest to help you lead a more meaningful life. Because that is what we expected of you. I don't know if you knew this. Or if you felt this was how it was going to be. I wish I had the courage to tell you how much I loved you, how much I still do and how much I will always love you. You will always be my hero and I will always be proud of you. For all the times when I wanted you to be better and told you so, there have been many other numerous times when you have filled my heart with joy and pride just by being you. Life is too short to get people to conform into our expectations of them. Life is too short to not love each other for who we are. Life proved to be too short for me to love you and for you to know that I love you. I hope and wish that Mehr gets to know you. I don't know how but I wish she does. I wish she gets one person in her life that you have been for me. If it is me then I will be thankful to god for giving me this opportunity to pass it on.

Merry Christmas papa. Do you have Christmas parties there too? and does Santa come on a fire engine or a Jonga or any other fauji piece of originality? We have finally put up a tree thanks to Mehr. Would you come along and pay us a visit? Is it too painful and a logistical nightmare for you and the bureaucracy up there to arrange it? Is that why death is so final? Because people have not yet figured out how to work around the red tape that saparates life from death?

Love
Shruti

Dear papa,

I was watching tanishq adds one after the other and it made me think of you somehow. Not that we have shopped from there a lot or anything like it. Its possibly because those adverts are made to make one feel cherished and that's how I felt with you- cherished. You were not a king but I was definitely your princess. I miss that and I miss you. I hope you are well and you can see things that we do. I hope you are watching over us, all of us. I wish you were here. I hope you know how much I love you. I need your strength tomorrow and I will be drawing from it.

Love
me

Dear Papa,

I am beginning to find new things about what I can do with my life. It is almost like an adventure. I choose to look at it like that. Everything will get better and I will be better equipped to create myself the way I wish to be. The way you taught us to want to be.

With love and more
Shruti