If you could see me right now

This is for my grandfather who passed away a few weeks back. If you're around, I hope you're reading every word.

I don't remember you. All my memories of you are just flashes of your face and phrases of the many things you've said to me. I'm trying so hard to remember every single moment we spent together but I can't. I just can't. My mind goes blank when I think about you.

When you went away, I told myself how it was bound to happen. I told myself that it was best for you and that you were put out of your suffering. I told myself that it was a good thing I wasn't around because I couldn't have handled the way you suffered before you left.

Everyone around me told me to be strong and told me that you're in a better place. They spent hours talking about how beautiful your life was and what an amazing person you were. They told me stories of you as a child and told me every happy moment in your life that they remembered.

I spent hours looking at photographs of you - I kept trying to recollect every memory of yours that I had stored away - but I couldn't. After a while, those pictures said nothing to me.

I hardly cried when you left. Things surprisingly went back to normal very quickly. My world didn't stop turning and nothing felt different. I didn't feel incomplete - It felt like you'd left a long time ago .

I felt so normal that I started feeling guilty that I wasn't crying. I had no clue why I couldn't cry. I felt guilty at the way I went on with my life like nothing happened.

But tonight, as I'm writing this, I want you to know that I would give anything in the world to hear you call me name. I would sacrifice everything I have just to hear you yell out from the kitchen when someone tried to get you to eat. I would give anything to walk into your room and see you lying on your bed, half asleep. I would give anything to be able to yell at you when you tried walking away on your own. I would give anything to be able to coax you and feed you again. I would give anything to hear you whine in your sleep. I would give anything just to see the way your face would light up at the thought of sweets.

There was so much I left unsaid and now its too late to say anything at all. I want you to know that I love you - even if I didn't show it much in the last two years. I didn't mean to stay locked up in my room most of the time - it was only because seeing you being ill was too hard for me. I wanted your good days to stay in my memory and not your bad ones. Im so sorry if I ever made you feel like I didn't love you. I'm so sorry if you ever thought that you were being a trouble to me.

Even when you were suffering in pain and I spent the night taking care of you, you looked up at me and said "You poor thing, because of me you have to go through so much trouble."

You always thought of me. And tonight, I can't stop thinking about you.

I'm sorry - please know that I'll always love you.

Moments of oblivion

The book slipped from her hand and dropped to the floor as she fell asleep.

Her soft breaths muffled the silence in her apartment. Water trickled, one drop at a time at the far end of the room. The ticking of the clock sounded louder than it was meant to be.

Someone was playing the piano a few floors below while someone else paced up and down on the floor above. The couple that lived next door were arguing over dinner and the voices drifted into her room.

If one listened closely enough, the rustling of the leaves on the trees down below characterized the wind. A dog whined as it nursed a wound.

The pages of her book ruffled as it lay on the floor.

But she dwelled in oblivion.

She couldn't hear any of it, not ever her soft breaths.

Lamp posts and gifts

Maturity comes when you learn to accept loss.

She sat and looked across the lake. The crickets were specially loud that night. The chattering of people on the other side floated through the air. The humid wind blew across her face. A tiny frog hopped into the water. She leaned against a lamp post and took a deep long breath. She smiled to herself as she heard laughter from the other end.

Memories of conversations that lasted entire nights, tears that were shed, jokes that were cracked, dreams that were built - they all came back to her. This had been their spot. A place they called their own. Some of her best times was under the lamp post, overlooking the lake and the entire city.

Tonight, she was there alone. Everything was exactly the way it had always been - but he wasn't there. Her heart tugged but there were no tears. There was no pain, no hurt, no sorrow. Instead, there was joy as she thought about the good times, there was peace as she thought about conversations that taught her to be who she was today, there was love as she thought about the times they spent in silence and there was warmth when she thought about everything he'd taught her.

The next morning would come and she'd wake up like everyday and go on with her life without him. But it no longer made her sad. Because she knew that what he'd left behind was what made her who she was today.

She was his farewell gift to her.