Grief.

I often find myself thinking about my amma and wondering, even after five years, whether I ever allowed myself to truly grieve for her, or whether I simply survived the moment and moved on without understanding what I had lost.

Grief does not come with a stopwatch or a required minimum dosage. There is no meter that tells you if you have paused long enough, cried hard enough, or processed the loss completely. After amma’s death, I did not have the luxury of space. Life kept pulling me forward. I got busy, incredibly and overwhelmingly busy. I had quit my job, I was starting my entrepreneurial journey, I was navigating the new relationships that came with marriage, and the sheer momentum of those years kept me from pausing. Nobody asked me to get over it. Life simply did not give me room to fall apart.

Years later, after moving away from the initial shock and the administrative demands of loss, I look back and wonder if I missed the window of grieving. This absence of intense, early grief does not mean I loved her less. My grief simply became a part of me quietly, like a background hum. I do not have a file of her under sad memories in my head. They are warm and joyful and often narrated to my partner, full of silly stories and small kindnesses. I rarely speak about the time in the hospital, the impossible decisions, the daily crisis. That trauma is probably somewhere inside, but the love has always taken the lead.

Memories.

Over time, memory rearranges itself. The tiny details fade, the pointless stresses vanish, and what remains is the warmth associated with a person, a happy one, a sad one, or a fun one.
For me, it is the memory of calling her every day at 4.30 PM to talk about my day.

Not a grand moment, but the feeling of having a safe space where I could share anything and everything, the feeling of being known and loved without conditions.

I moved out twenty years ago, but until she passed, that house was still home. Now, when I visit my dad, it does not feel the same. The structure has not changed, but the foundation of comfort is gone.

Dusk.

The jarring part is how quickly those warm memories collide with the final ones. Her illness was relentless. It felt like a constant war against her own body. I was thirty-two, signing consent forms, comprehending risks I did not want to hear, and for the first time in my life, I felt like an adult in the most painful way. Until then, even at my most independent, I was still her child, and suddenly I realized that I could never be a child again.

She was weak and fragile, sometimes childlike in her confusion, and there was this moment where she asked repeatedly for watermelon juice. It was probably the last thing she ate. That small request made her look like my baby, and for a moment I felt relief that she wanted something for herself. The roles had reversed, and this change was not easy. I was burdened with the reality of being the adult, making decisions about life and death for the person who had been my life.

I remember standing blankly in the ICU as the doctors tried to revive her, surrounded by other lives and other battles, and I felt like an observer rather than a participant. Every decision had to be mine. My dad was not in a place to comprehend, and while my husband and cousins were rock solid, ultimately the final yes or no rested on my shoulders. In that blank moment, when everything stopped, I felt a strange kind of relief when it was over. Not relief that she was gone, but relief that the endless, impossible pressure of keeping her suffering body alive had lifted. Even now, I do not know what felt lighter, the moment she passed or the earlier moment when I briefly believed she might get well.

There is a memory of her trying to recall something she loved eating, a small dish that my dad used to bring her, and we racked our brains trying to figure out what it was. We never did. But I realize now that it was never about the specific dish; it was the feeling associated with it, the feeling of being cared for and loved, of having a simple comfort delivered by her lifelong partner.

That yearning for shared, simple joy remains a constant theme in my thoughts about her.

Future.

This brings me to the other side of my grief: the pain of the unlived future. I feel a strange sadness that she was not able to see the woman I have become five years later. It is not about how proud she would have been, but about the sheer joy of sharing small parts of life with her. I wish she could have lived here with me in the mountains, seen a different life, and simply watched me and my husband be happy. I always loved mountains, and I think she did too. I just wanted her to be part of my experience, to sit with me, call me silly for moving so far, and then be quietly thrilled that I followed my heart. I wish my husband had gotten more time with her, had gotten to know the kindest and sometimes most naive person I knew.

Legacy.

When I think of her now, I remember her more as a wonderful human than as a parent. And what a kind human she was. When she was in the hospital, my cousins, aunts, and uncles were the strongest support I had, and they were there not just for me but for her, the kindest person they probably knew. She made sure that we, her daughters, were financially independent, well read, and educated, ready to step out into the world confidently, doing the things she could not. The travel bug she instilled in me is something I can never thank her enough for; it constantly reminds me of the beautiful, vast world she encouraged me to explore.

I do not have one specific piece of advice from her that I carry, but I have the core values she and my father instilled. I have built upon them, learning and doing things my own way. Today, that means I am more informed, and the bedrock value I cherish most, the one that anchors my choices, is honesty. I think she would have been proud of us for simply striving to be good humans.

When people ask me if I regret not saying something to her, I cannot think of any unfinished conversation. Life is not finite in terms of spoken words. We will always think of things we missed telling her, or things we miss telling her now. But perhaps that is the point.

The memories may blur, but the feeling associated with her never does.