52 Weeks Later: The Lessons My Father Left Behind
The 26th of August marked the first death anniversary of my father. In the months leading up to this date, I was filled with an inexplicable grief. Every month this year, I relived the corresponding month of last year. The hospital stays. The uncertainty. The small moments of hope. The things we celebrated despite everything that was happening. And as the 26th of August drew closer, the weight of it all seemed harder to carry. The last few months were, in many ways, more difficult than even the first few weeks after Appa passed away. In those initial days, I had a misplaced belief in my own inner strength and my ability to deal with loss. I thought I was holding up well. I didn't quite understand then that grief doesn't necessarily arrive all at once. Sometimes, it waits. I wanted to ease the pain by writing, and I thought, what better subject to write about than grief? After all, hadn't grief been a constant companion for the last 52 weeks? And then came the 26th of Augu...