Dearest Father...

I do not even know what to write about you, about us, or the moments that held onto us but could never be fully cherished. I was just 10 at the time when you left us, and nothing has been the same anymore.

I can still feel the pounding of your heart, the scent from the lonely gardens, and the echoes from the crying valley, that day, as you lay, tormented by the pain and tired of the unending suffering. Remember, I was just next to you, and perhaps the last image of me that you’d capture, now that I think. I’m not so sure what I would have been thinking at the time, but I can imagine that you would’ve been really worried about me, about us, but could not be spared a few more seconds to even speak.

It’s like every beautiful song that had ever been sung, or the skies that had been painted with affection were now faintly slipping away, as I sat, stagnated in time, right next to you. Why would this ever happen to me, and why is it that sorrow found a way such effortlessly into our lives? Such was the nature of questions that confounded me each day.

You said that we’d go on an adventure, and surely we did, but how could I have known that it’d be our last, that day during August. My heart has since been filled with ashes of regret, a woe of uncertainty fills the vacuum that I am, and the pictures of you inside my mind are playing on repeat. How could I ever come into terms that you left us so early?

I can still play the songs of your appealing voice, ringing tones of comfort that poured towards me each time I was in distress. And that evening when you went out looking for me because I had still not returned home, is something that is unconditionally inscribed into my memories. Your eyes sparkled with profuse adoration right after seeing me as if I was the only person you ever treasured.

You held me tenderly when the world had stopped giving and you endured the melting sun despite the unforgiving pain crippling your body, just so that I did not go to bed hungry.

And the night before you left, I remember sitting next to you, asking of you, the stories of your childhood, which you so elegantly narrated. O clouds in limbo, unworthy is my breath because I could not even whisper to you that night, about how much I loved you.

Today, my heart is an ocean of your memories, an exo-planet of our moments together, and a cloud of your comfort during the times when I need it the most.

Nothing has been the same anymore since you left papa, because the world is not so beautiful anymore. People do not even take out time to listen to the melancholic minds that walk such tiredly, exhausted by the harsh realities of life.

Our hearts have already been dressed up for the party in which everyone turns up, but no one is ever happy.

And to you my dearest father, if you were next to me right now, I’d hug you tightly, tell you how much I’ve missed you, and make you promise me that you’d never leave me alone again.

I miss you so much, papa…

-Yogesh Chandra