A letter to my Mother — (5th and last letter of the series of letters)

Dear Mum,

I am angry. I am so angry and I’m sad. I am bargaining but have accepted you are not around as well. I am in all stages of grief and it already has been 8 yrs. I was 15 then, a kid you loved more than yourself but now I am almost 24 and you have ceased to exist. The fact that I am struggling with the same things you did makes me understand you more but infuriates me as well. Maybe if you weren’t the way you were, I might too have not been this way. But I also notice that I laugh like you did and my eyes are like yours. Anyone who stares into them has told me, I hold you dearly in them. I hold you when I drape your sarees, why would I ever buy a new six-yard to wrap around my body? But there is a gigantic void in me which I had expected so long for you to fill. I had no idea what death really meant then. Now I do, and I know that void, I’ll have to fill it myself. This is such a hard letter to write and I thought this will be the easiest. I sometimes can’t comprehend my grief and talk gibberish like I am right now and I want to tell you that there are nights I start to cry because I miss you. And that’s all there really is to say when I’ve exhausted all my words I had saved for you. I love you Mum and I miss you!

Your’s

Anushtha