I think the grief has passed me by
Until I wake up one day
To the muted dark of a city awaiting dawn
The chai does nothing to take away my stupor.
I hear the cuckoo call out to her mate
Without the childlike pleasure I feel
In the urge to answer her call.

I think grief has passed me by
Until I sit on my balcony, the chai going cold in my hands.
I remember my dad's hands,
Once so strong he threw up in the air and caught me unerringly.
And then frustratingly frail.
I watched him as he tried, over and over again, to get a stronger grip,
To control his arms that flopped without grace.

I think grief has passed me by
Until I remember how proud my dad was of his writer-daughter.
As I sat by the hospital bed one day,
Raising the volume on the TV so that he could hear the movie
That he could no longer turn his head to watch.
He said, You can make a story out of this, you know.
I pretend not to know what he is talking about.
This, he says, what happened to me. The fall, and me bedridden.

His unspoken words echo in my ears: I was fiercely independent once, and I carried every weight on my shoulders without flinching, but my body has failed me now. Is this story good enough for you?

I think the grief has passed me by
Until I'm arranging the bookshelf with my daughter
And I explain to her how Appaji would stack the books
Thematically, or colour coded,
But always in 'descending height order',
Packed tight, no spaces between them.

I think the grief has passed me by
Until I fight with my closest friend
And there is an emptiness in my life
Nature hates a vacuum, and mine is filled 
With memories of my father and how he kept quiet and held my hand
Even when he did not understand.
Especially when he did not understand. 

And now the vacuum is but a spiralling canyon
Of gut-wrenching sobs.

I think the grief has passed me by
But it has just settled into the tight knot
Between my shoulder blades
Ready to twist knife-like
Every time I hit rock bottom
Every time I take a pause to breathe
Every time I try to write it away

Until it does, I'll believe the grief has passed me by.

đź’›
I wrote this in April 2020, two months after my dad passed. I did not cry at his funeral. I did not cry when everyone around me broke down. I did not cry until I let the words out.