THE ONLY WAY I AM LEFT WITH TO THANK YOU…

Dear Grandpa,

This is the most difficult and painful letter I have ever written. I know, you know it too… You can see me and feel what I am going through in this very moment I am penning this letter.

You have been an inspiration and there is no second thought about that. I have learnt how to love and care for others only from you.  All the people whom you have helped missed you dearly after you left us.

You are the only person with whom I have spent most of my time in childhood with, I don’t remember spending so much of time with my parents too. You are the only one who really made an attempt to understand me, what I really like, what interests me. With a person like me, who doesn’t talk and express much, it only gets tougher, but you never gave up. Thank you for all the efforts you have put to become my best friend, a friend I always cherished to have. 

The loving way in which you caressed my hair to wake me up in the morning, wait for me to return from school to share all that has happened during the day and in return listen to my stories. I could rest my head on your shoulder and slip into a peaceful sleep. Without you, I would have never experienced how it feels to be loved unconditionally. I am afraid, I may not really thank you enough, for all those big and small moments which mattered to me at that little age.

Do you remember, I came to meet you at the hospital, I was so very happy to see you recovering after being hospitalized for more than two weeks. You took my hand into yours and expressed how much you missed home.  I wanted you back, back home, back in my life. I was not at all prepared for you to leave me alone and the news of your passing away only left me in utter shock. There was not a single drop of water that came out of my eyes during my visit to hospital or while we brought your lifeless body back. May be I was angry or in tremendous grief that I could barely even understand what was happening… May be only you and I know how much I cried in solitude. I can never forget any of that has happened, I can easily relive those moments in my imagination. That feel of holding your hand never leaves me.

Only after you passed away I realized how much your love matters to me. When I entered your study room to collect some of your articles to secure them, I found more of mine. Your diary told me what you never did. All my achievements with dates penned, related pictures, all my birthday photographs, newspaper cuttings(my name appeared a couple of times) , my first ever scribble (an art piece) :-).. I have not encountered another person who can shower so much of love on me. I miss you greatly and your spot can never be replaced by anyone. If you can, please come back to me, I need you…

Life hasn’t been easy after you. I can never say I learn’t to live without you. It was so very difficult to reconcile the fact that I want to see you again with reality that I never would be. I love you and miss you so much. I find you everywhere I go and please be with me as you have always been. Thank you very much for everything, for being a friend, guide, teacher more than everything else, my grandpa. I am very blessed to have had you as part of my life…

Lots of Love,

~Aastha.

I know this letter cannot reach my grandpa, but I wanted to share this with all of you my dear friends. I would have been very fortunate if I would have had a chance to say all this directly to him. I was really very young and didn’t have an understanding about life either. Love others unconditionally and be thankful for all the love you get back, love is the most precious gift we get, I am sure all of us agree…  I hope none of us have to end up writing such letters.

Thank people for what they do whenever you can, because they deserve it …