Thoughts...

Dear Rishi,
Am so lost. I know I have things to do. I know I should channel this pain and give it meaning. So that you being with us is not forgotten. That it all should have meaning.

But, I just can't seem to get started. Will I never change?

I saw a movie, it wasn't even good and yet the lines in it brought back memories of those moments that I try to bury deep deep inside. I don't want to remember them at all.

How I miss you. It aches.

I love you.

Mama.

A Good Day

Dear Rishi,
I keep reading more and more articles of how the soul works. Do children who've left early due to an accident or issues come back to their parents? Some people say yes, some say no.

Sometimes I believe you are coming back to me, to give me a second change at being a better Mom. Sometimes I feel that you were with us and went away so suddenly to teach me how to be better.

I know I had lots of faults but I find it hard to grapple with the fact that why still me. There are parents who were worse. Why me?

Oh well. I will await your coming back to me. Whenever that happens.

I miss you every day.

Love,
Mama

Hollow and Empty

Dear Rishi,
It's a hard day today. I just feel like I can't breathe. I don't know what to do. I can't seem to move. Just come to me.

Sona moni, please come back to me. It was my job to make your life better. But, now I need you. Make me feel better.

Love,
Mama

Weekend

Dear Rishi,
It's so hard to not be around you. Today, images of you at the hospital bed and the last moments of when we let you go kept coming up in my mind. It's not that I don't want to remember those moments, they will always be a reminder to me to not have taken you and not to take anything for granted.

I want to remember you as the giggling child when Mama tickled you.

How I miss you. It's still so surreal. How do other parents do it. Part of reading parents who have survived ten, twenty, thirty years gives me some strength. Yet, at the same time it makes me so sad and anguished that it will take me that long to find out what happens to life after death.

Some say, you will come back. Your grandmother believes that when life has such an unexpected tragic accident, the soul comes back to that family. In a way I want to believe that. I want you to come back to me.

Please come back to me.

I love you so much.

Love,
Mama

It's Friday.

Dear Rishi,
It's Friday. You would have come back home from day care and you, me and Daddy would have gone out bar hopping. :)

Yes, you were too young to bar hop but you know how Daddy and Mommy loved you. We were giving you all the experience early enough. :)

Licking the rim of Daddy's beer. Getting ogled by everyone. Cuz you were just so darn cute! Now, when we are in restaurants and waitress go gaga over another baby, I miss you so much.

You were my most perfect child. I am sorry I failed you.

I love you so much.

Love,
Mama

To Remember? To Forget?

To remember is to relive the sadness.
To forget is to feel the guilt that you're letting go.

What does one do? Just so torn between the two.

The Lamp

Dear Rishi,
Remember the floor lamp that you loved to pull? Remember that time when you pulled it non-stop and me and Daddy tried saying no and yet you continued to do so. We tried to give you time-outs. We pulled you away not just once but three times. You would cry every time and as soon as we let you go, you ran back to the lamp to pull it again. You would smile at us and pull on the lamp again having already forgotten that you were bawling just a few mins ago.

It was so frustrating and yet so funny to see you, an innocent child just playing. Not knowing what is going on

And that's just what you were doing. Playing. When you went away from us. Forever.

I miss you Shona Moni. I miss you.

Love,
Mama

Daycare

Dear Rishi,
I went to your new day care today to pick up all your things. Your Red Fox group was napping. I wish I had come by one day to see you nap. You always were so cute when up napped with your butt up in the air.

Grandpa used to say maybe because your diaper is wet, you sleep that way and I used to laugh at him.

I miss that about you. Watching you just before you are about to wake up. You would climb up and reach out to me from your crib.

This is one of the last pics I have of you sleeping that way.

Miss you loads, my Shona Moni.

Love,
Mama

Home Alone

Dear Rishi,
Your dad went back to work today and am hoping he is fine. He doesn't show how much he is hurting but I know he is. After all, he spent so much more time with you than I did. Time I wish had spent with you. Every minute of every day, I wish for it. So badly to see you again.

As I watch TV, the songs I used to play for you to make you dance come up and now I have tears in my eyes. I can remember vividly how you used to give me the weirdest stare when I would dance and be wondering what is she doing.

And then you would start moving up and down. How I wish I had a video of it. How did I know that you would go so far away from me. Never to return.

I miss you so so much.

Love,
Mama

On Repeat

Dear Rishi,
We went to see 'Edge of Tomorrow" when we were in India just to take our mind off of things. The tag line of the movie is "Live. Die. Repeat". While watching it, how I wished I could reset that day. Have done just something different so that you were here with us.

While it has a happy ending, for us, there is none.

Just this endless cycle of waking up, realizing you are not here. Dealing with it for the next few hours. Trying to get some work done. And then going to sleep.

And the next day, it starts all over again.

I read a spiritual article that said that one should let go as it is not good for me to be so attached to you. And yet, I just can't.

I love you so much. I want to hold you so bad.

Love,
Mama

A Month

Dear Rishi,
It's been a month since it happened. I remember vividly you walking in the front yard after coming out of the car. Running away while I picked you up.

I remember eating pani puri while you were having your snack. You fed me some of it.

Today, your dad and I are going out to see houses. I want to stay here forever but it also reminds me of you so much. I say everyday that I won't cry. But, the moment I wake up and the reality hits that you are not around, it comes. I try not to break down and yet just looking something random like the pantry and all the biscuits that you won't be eating made me cry.

We drove down the street I used to take when I took you for your ISR lessons. How I wish I had been more adamant to teach you floating. How I wish I hadn't stepped out into the backyard with you that day.

I love you so much. I miss you so much.

Love,
Mama

My Baby, Rishi.

I am "Rishi's Mom".

I will always be his mother, but I will not hear those words ever again.

My baby is gone. Forever.

Every day I wonder, will he come back to me? Is this real? Am I about to wake up? And yet I know the answer to all of it is a No.

Never again, will I hold my baby in my arms. Or tickle him silly. Feed him. Take a bite from him as he feeds me.

He was just 18 months and 6 days old. We had just gone to see his pediatrician for a check up. He said he should be saying 10 words or more and I got concerned.

But, now I will never hear him talk. Ever.

I miss you so much Rishi. I am so sorry I caused this. I guess my punishment is to feel this pain forever and yet it doesn't feel like it is enough. I should be punished more. I should be the one dead. You should be alive.

How could I? How did I let it happen? Questions that even I can't answer.

I try to be strong and yet I feel so hollow inside. That feeling at the pit of my stomach. The same stomach that bore you for nine months. That you slept on so peacefully.

Am sorry, my baby. Am so sorry. I love you so much. So so much.