My Best Friend

I remember very vividly spending my summer vacations at Chennai almost two decades ago with my grandparents. It was a time I longed for and looked forward to the whole year. All around me people hated going to Chennai during summers because of the unbearable heat but for me it hardly mattered. Spending time with my grandparents surpassed everything at that time for me. It's ironical how as children we really value the most important aspects of life and as we grow we start giving more importance to the petty things in life. My grand mom was an incredibly special person to me. I cannot forget the endless conversations I would have with her when I was a little child. When everybody else was treating me as a child and dismissing me she was perhaps the only one who spoke to me like I was an adult, tolerating all my idiosyncrasies. Now she is no more!!

She passed away on August 30th after being bed ridden for almost a month. When I flew down to India after hearing that she was in a critical condition, I could not recognize her anymore. It was like all the life had already been sucked out of her. She was half her size with absolutely no facial expressions and she was just staring into space. I always felt that she was the most funny person I had ever met, with age her sense of humor just increased. I could just have endless conversations with her without ever getting bored. She had infinite funny stories about me as a child and all the fun we would both have when we were around. Just to see her so lifeless in bed was just heart breaking for me. The minute my mom announced that I was here to see her, I noticed a drastic change in her expression, she started to smile and tried to talk but her body wouldn't allow it. What made it unbelievable for me to accept her imminent death was that she was so hale and hearty a year ago when I was visiting India. She was the kind of person who was very particular about eating in a timely manner. Since she had trouble walking around, she had all of her essential food items like bread, biscuits, water right next to her. It would look funny to people who came to visit her because it looked a mini store beside here with all of her food and medicines neatly arranged. This made it all the more heart breaking for me when I found out that she had stopped eating all together and was just surviving on 3-4 tsps of milk everyday. Her bodily functions had also stopped and we knew that we were counting days.

In those few days that I was in India, I couldn't help but reminisce about all the wonderful time I spent with her. All those evenings in Chennai sipping coffee with her and talking non stop about all the things under the sun. I cannot forget sitting on the kitchen counter top looking fascinated at what she was cooking. She was my horror movie watching buddy, everyone else in the family hated horror movies but the both of us  would just hole up in the bedroom and watch whatever horror movie was on. She was always incredibly proud of me right from when I was a little girl and was my biggest advocate when everyone else was against me. When the world had given up on me about me learning to cook, she was always super confident that one day I would be an awesome cook. When people complained that I was very cut off and unemotional, she would always advocate that I was the most emotional person that they could find but I just didn't know how to express my feelings. In short she was always there for me.

On August 30th, 2015, I did not just lose my grandmother but I lost my best friend and nothing in this whole wide world can replace the vacuum she has left behind in my life.