On the way to visit my grandpa today, I was so scared. I’d only ever visited by myself when it was both Dadi and Dada, and Dadi is usually the one who did the talking because Dada is just quiet by nature.
I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know what we’d talk about after our usual hellos and greetings and updates. I hadn’t even been in their bedroom since the week of the funeral, during which everything was a blur and surreal that I didn’t even pay attention to anything I was feeling, instead trying to hold it together for my mom and my aunt.
I was afraid of how I would feel - when I walked in, when I saw her spot, empty; her bedside table, cleared; her side of the bed, without a crumpled blanket at the end. I was afraid I would cry when I saw my grandpa, because seeing him without my grandma sitting right across from him still surprises me and still makes my heart ache in ways it never has.
Instead, he surprised me. He told me stories about when he was in school, stories about how he won a singing competition one year and how he asked a professor to give his little brother a passing grade even though he was about to fail. He told me how much he admires teachers, and how in the Gita, teachers are revered most after God and parents. He told me how teachers lay the foundations for children’s futures, and how personally responsible they are. He told me to be proud.
He told me stories about him and Dadi, about when they were young and when they moved here. He cried a little bit, when talking about how he had 122 files about Dadi’s health, discs of her x-rays, and how he’d spent the last few days looking at them and ripping them up and throwing them away. He wondered aloud how someone can be gone in an instant, and in another instant, their whole life on paper can be wiped away. He told me how she had told him in the ambulance that she knew it was her time to go, and how she begged him to let her. He told me that they were blessed with 65+ years together, and that that was something to celebrate. He told me that he wished she’d taken him with her, and when I started crying, he comforted me. He made me laugh and talked to me like an adult, but hugged me like the youngest grandchild that I am.
And even though I did feel all of those things that I was afraid of before I walked in the door, I’m not afraid anymore. I know that my grandpa is going to be okay, and that gives me hope. I know that my grandmother is rejoicing in a place far better than I could ever imagine, and that gives me hope. I know that time heals, and God gives us strength for each day, and that gives me hope. And above all, I know that Dadi will always be watching over us and showering us with blessings, and that gives me hope.
