01/10/2025
“Grief and gratitude often walk together… and somehow, both feel sacred.” These Navratri days felt heavier than usual. I found myself missing Papa in the smallest of ways. He was the one who always sent the Ashtami prasad, who reminded me of the rituals…even though he knew I rarely followed them to the letter. Somehow, his reminders felt less about rules and more about love. A safety net. A kind of protection.
It’s strange, how for over a decade I was more a parent to him than a daughter, caring for him through his health struggles. And yet, despite the role reversal, he still gave me that sense of being looked after. A presence I leaned on, even when I didn’t realize it. Now, in his absence, the silence feels loud.
But alongside the sadness, there is gratitude. Gratitude for the memory of him, for the rituals my grandmother followed with such faith and discipline, for the thread of devotion that runs through generations in different forms…
I may not do it the way they did, but I am finding my way of connecting with the goddesses…with my Creator. My prayers may dissent in form, but they meet theirs in spirit. In belief. In love. In a quiet faith that continues to hold me, even as I miss them.
These days, I carry both…the ache of loss and the comfort of knowing that the ones I loved and who loved me deeply are still here, in rituals, in memory, in the rhythm of devotion that beats on in its own gentle way…
And when, some friends and neighbors send me prasad when I couldn’t perform the pooja myself. That too felt like being held, like being carried in a safe, unseen space…Pc: prints of Dithi Mukherjee
