Baba,

It’s been almost a year since you left us. The last few days leading up to the first anniversary of your death are very difficult. Sometimes, I think: ”did that really happen?” It still feels like yesterday. People pass away constantly. People lose parents or family or friends all the time. Yet, when it happens to us, we think, “no one can understand how painful it is and how much it hearts.” I will never get over losing you. I will always wish our family did not get affected by the COVID pandemic. I will never get over how it stole you at a premature age from us. Everything in my life changed since you left us. And I still struggle every single day to put the pieces of my life back together. I feel this barrage of emotions- grief, guilt, anger, emptiness. I always feel a baseline of sadness. There is not a single day when your absence is not an undercurrent in my thoughts. It feels like running an exhausting yet never ending mental marathon for the rest of my life. When you left us, I grieved angry at the world that did not experience loss of a loved one to COVID but also comforting myself thinking about so many others who have had it much worse. But I now think it is not about who had it better or worse. All of us are now connected due to the trauma of losing family to the pandemic.

Even though my eyes dampen time and again, but I don’t cry anymore. I rarely have a breakdown these days. I go about my busy life. We have taken a few trips since you died. I make food. I play with our dog. I laugh. I watch movies. I go out for dinners. Yet, I never talk to Ma about you. I have been too scared to go through your messages or pictures on my phone. I cannot watch medical dramas or any hospital scene in a movie anymore. The other day I spoke for two hours about you with a colleague who recently lost her father and I felt a strong connection. It’s weird how grief unites people.

I love you, Baba. And I miss you. Every day, every single minute. Life is beautiful and you should have been here to enjoy it. You were 65, dads are not supposed to die at 65. They are supposed to live to be older and crankier and more annoying over time. But now you are gone and our life is empty. It’s wrong. Everything feels wrong. I wish I had hugged you more. I thought we had time. I wish we could make new memories together. I wish you and Ma could visit us in the US again- just like others’ parents. I wish I could see you get older. I wish you would call me so I could hear your voice again. I wish we could take a walk together and talk about things. I hoped and prayed that you would beat COVID. We fought against your disease together and gave each other strength through that unimaginable struggle. My heart feels so heavy from all this love for you that everyone calls grief, and I am tired. But I know you will always be with me in spirit and are there helping me as I attempt to rebuild my life, minute by minute, day by day, week by week, month by month. I know you will always watch over me as I try to exist in the spaces without you.