Your woolen shawl that smelt a strange comforting fragrance of vicks and ointment. The dentures that we loved to hide. The way you would mix up small pieces of deboned boiled fish in small pieces of rotlo and feed it to me when I was little. When you gifted me my first ever white jeans and I swore they were the coolest thing any teenager could own. Our banter back and forth when you would ask me to massage your legs. The knick knacks you’d always have hidden away in your closet that you’d dig out for us to have. A perfume from one part of the world, a lotion bottle from another. Little bits of jewelry that you’d ask me if I liked. My favorite pickles that you sent for me all the way from India and asked me if I wanted anything else. That night when we went for a walk, inching along the footpath, you holding on to my hand and stopped for bhel puri at the food stall. When you scolded me for being a spoilt brat. The loving way in which you would place your hand on my head and ask me if I was happy. How you held on to each one of us and hugged us for the longest time when we left. And ran out the door onto the porch to receive us when we came back. Tears of sorrow turning to tears of joy. Your sense of humor. Your laugh that I’ll never see again. The letters I never wrote. The phone calls I never made. The years that passed us by. And then the phone conversation I had with you when you found out about my love for a man you’d never ever met and all you asked was “is he a good man?”. Your unconditional acceptance. The face in the mirror that I inherited from you. The care you always showed even when there was just silence from my end. The words I never said. The many excuses that I made. I never once said how much I care for you, and it’s the deepest regret I’ll ever have.
Unending conversations, countless images, the many words both spoken and unspoken over the years, endless memories that ebb and flow through the seas of nostalgia in my head, now make me cry.
I know I don’t say much when I should, but just for one last moment I wish I could say and you could hear that I miss you so much, grandma. And that I do really care.
~vagabond~ © 2009
