More than 4 years have gone since I last heard your sage advice and received that unconditional love. Your voice is fading like faint whispers on the ether of time. Yet you live on through me and mom; through Aditya and your daughter in law; and through your grandson who you couldn’t see. What wonderful memories lay in store for you when your mortal sojourn ended? I can just imagine you holding your grandson and the bond that you would have forged with him, the adventures we would have had together, the support you would have given my every crazy idea and stupid notion while gently nudging me towards the sensible course of action.
There is a huge vacuum you left which is like a bottomless abyss on the happiest of days. I have not built you into a larger than life figure because you already were so when alive. Your contentment with little; your unselfish acts some of which I discovered only after you were gone; your honesty and integrity; all these and much more made you my true role model as I grew up. Your sparkling eyes and quick smile; the gentleness of your being suffusing me with calmness and enveloping me with a shield against the harsher truths of this world; these are the things forever lost to me. I might find true happiness with time but there will always be a degree of happiness I would never attain because you are gone.
To share my joy with you, to share my grief and doubts, to travel with you and your childish sense of wonder and delight, these are the things I will never stop missing. You were a kindred soul, a helping hand in the darkest of times and the most solid ray of sunshine on the cloudiest of days.
You were my dad, my best friend and the one guide who I always paid heed to.
I miss you dad, every day and always.
