Words @3AM

It’s three in the wee hours of the morning and my eyes are wide open. I should be asleep…but her smile. Her smile prevents me from doing so. Sitting upright, with my arms hugging my pokemon plushie tightly held against my chest, this probably isn’t the time to let the waterworks start. I mean…I just finished watching an episode from ‘Friends’ where Ross tells Rachel not to go to Paris. Seems like the Universe was definitely on a mission to conspire against me. However, they were doing it for a cause. It was in the Year of 2018, in December when I got a phone call from my uncle informing me that my grandmother had passed. 

I didn’t know what to say, let alone know how to think. I didn’t know that June 2018, during the Summer in India would be the last time I’d see her. See her in person. See her aged, but beautiful face light up whenever I’d show her something interesting I’d created. See her crack sassy one-liners that had me hollering on the floor. So, here I am, sitting on my bed with my grandmother standing in front of me, that radiant smile still on her face. 

She asks me how I’m doing. I tell her I’m sorry. I tell her I’m sorry for not having stayed longer and spending time with her just because the area she stayed in didn’t match my taste. A taste so selfish and bitter, I couldn’t help but blink twice, feeling a tear scorching my face. I tell her I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not having spoken to her, let alone checking on her to see how she was doing. How she was coping…surviving. She laughed it off and I could envision her hand smacking my head. At 76, she still had that power to make you see forty of everything. I then feel her holding me in her arms…telling me that I’m going to be okay and that she isn’t upset because she has found a home. A home where she’s free from pain, resentment and negativity and that the almighty is there, taking care of her the way she’s always taken care of me and my family. Including the people around her. Whoever she knew…she won the hearts of many. 

I smiled and watched her diminish within the golden light which was peeking through the curtains against my bedroom window. It was that day where I learnt how to love, accept and let go of emotions that I should’ve expressed earlier.