A friend shared with me today that even as I grieve I must find a way to see the gratitude in the time that we had together. The last days for mom were tough and the decisions I had to make difficult, but I was lucky to have the time to be there with her. It wasn’t catastrophic where she got hit by a car or some other catastrophe!

Not much consolation but some perspective nonetheless.

Happy Diwali to all my wonderful Hindu friends from India and the Indian diaspora on HP. Thank you for your kindness n support but also for sharing your creativity and brilliance. I went to the local Indian store in town and bought some Jalabees and Rasgoolas and Samosas that I’m going to sit down and eat for dinner as I think of all of you, Indian Temple architecture and visiting India someday. Happy Diwali!

We had a tense and rocky relationship as I came of age as a young gay teenager in a Christian household! We ever saw eye to eye and she thought It was her fault I was gay and she had to rectify the error - me! But she softened as only a mother can - and just as we began mending fences and I too started growing up and being less recalcitrant she fell ill. It brought us closer faster, but not close enough, nor fast enough nor LONG enough before she was snatched away. I’m left with ragged bittersweet memories as I try to make sense of the shifting sands beneath my feet and I miss her and regret so deeply the years I truly wasted in trying to establish an “identity” that in death is meaningless!!

I found myself alone - a lonely wanderer by the graves this week. People are too busy with the living to commune with their past I guess...I shouldn’t judge. Just exacerbates my sense of disconnectedness. I don’t know where this is all taking me or if there is a journey or a destination in all this grief. I wish I could talk to you...

Many a family in dire circumstances have skipped meals or left them to go icy cold outside an ICU ante room as we prayed fervently for a divine intervention that never arrived. I’m left fatigued at being so selfishly prayerful and equally angry at the hollowness of the rationale provided in the aftermath of my mother’s demise. I have no answers and fewer questions- reaching ambivalence I guess.

I hope somehow through the “ether” she reads this so she knows what transpired during her last few hellish weeks. It was a new set of spiraling circumstances everyday and I truly did the best I could do to keep her alive, and when that seemed futile her comfort was paramount. And when her comfort was compromised, my god....my god....my god... that’s why I write this to you mom - in the hope that you understand. I so desperately wish I could have talked to you just once about this all. You stared at me penetratingly but not a word slipped through - I only saw you wince in pain. Lord alone knows how much you endured, how much you suffered - at the end - it is NOT about me but about YOU! I hope as a son - no matter what, I did right by you.