Tag: Death

Still Here

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I didn’t expect a video game to undo me today.

I was just drifting—scrolling through my PS5 library like I’ve been doing with everything else in my life lately. Looking without really looking. Nothing holding. Nothing landing. And then I opened Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Not because I wanted to play it—just because it was there. Habit. Muscle memory.

The moment my character started walking through the forest, something inside me cracked.

It wasn’t the game.

It was the recognition.

That feeling of stepping into a version of my life that doesn’t exist anymore.

When I checked the save file, it said May 2025.

And I just broke down.

Because that was a time when Zack and Xena were alive. When my world, however imperfect, was still whole in ways it will never be again.

I couldn’t overwrite it.

I physically couldn’t.

It felt like killing something that was already dead. Like I would be complicit in erasing proof that that life ever happened. So I didn’t. I made a new save. Left that one untouched. Preserved. Frozen. Like grief does.

Not in a dignified, poetic way. There was nothing graceful about it. It was ugly. It was helpless. It was that kind of crying where your chest actually hurts and you don’t even know what exactly you’re crying for anymore because it’s everything.

After that I went looking for her.

Goodie Pua.

Instagram first. Then Facebook. Scrolling like if I just kept going I might find something I’d missed. Some version of her that still exists somewhere. I found a photograph I love. One I’ve seen before. It didn’t matter. I held onto it like it was new.

And then a song came into my head. 

Mohammed Rafi singing “Waqt Se Din Aur Raat.”

And that was it.

Because today is the 19th.

The day she passed. 

Five years.

Five years and I still can’t accept that she’s just… gone. That all of them are just… gone.

What am I supposed to do with that?

What does anyone do with that?

People talk about grief like it’s something you process, something that moves, something that softens.

It doesn’t.

It just builds.

It layers.

It waits.

And then it hits you in moments like this—when you’re doing something completely meaningless, and suddenly you’re not in your life anymore. You’re standing in all the lives you’ve lost at once.

Pua.  

Zack.  

Xena.  

Do you know what it feels like to carry that many ghosts?

Because I do.

And I’m tired.

I’m so tired of being the one who survives everything.

There’s something deeply unfair about it. About watching everyone you love leave—whether through death or distance or whatever cruel mechanism life chooses—and you’re just… still here.

Still expected to function. To eat. To talk. To show up. To carry on like this is normal.

It’s not normal.

It’s not okay.

And I’m not okay with it.

When Christina waved at me from the car today, I waved back. And in that exact moment, something inside me just… dropped.

Because I’ve lived that wave before.

I’ve lived the kind that ends everything.

And my body remembers it, even when I don’t want to.

That’s the thing no one tells you—your body keeps score in ways your mind can’t control. A simple goodbye isn’t simple anymore. It’s loaded. It’s dangerous. It’s a reminder of how quickly everything can be taken.

And then I start thinking—

What is the point of any of this?

Where is this going?

How much more loss is waiting for me?

Because it feels endless.

And I don’t have some beautiful, hopeful answer.

If I’m being completely honest—the only reason I’m still here is Zuri.

That’s it.

Not purpose. Not passion. Not some belief in life getting better.

Just her.

Because she needs me.

Because I know how to love her in a way that feels right. In a way that feels like the only thing I haven’t completely failed at.

And even as I say that, there’s this voice in my head that says—

“Maybe even she will be fine without you.”

And that thought… that thought is brutal.

Because it makes everything feel even smaller. Even more pointless. Like I’m holding on for something that may not even need me the way I need it.

But then there’s this other truth. One I don’t even understand myself.

I always come back.

I don’t know how.

I don’t know why.

I don’t even feel like I want to sometimes.

But I do.

Every time I’ve hit this place—where everything feels meaningless, where the weight feels unbearable, where I genuinely don’t see the point—I still somehow find myself waking up the next day. Breathing. Moving. Existing.

Not healed.

Not better.

Just… still here.

And I don’t know if that’s strength or habit or just survival instinct refusing to let go.

Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Maybe this isn’t a story about healing.

Maybe it’s just the truth of what it is to live like this—

Carrying too much.  

Remembering too much.  

Losing too much.  

And still, somehow, being forced to continue.

Today isn’t a lesson.

There’s no meaning I can tie this into to make it easier to hold.

It’s just grief.

Raw. Heavy. Unresolved.

A song I didn’t choose.  

A memory I couldn’t escape.  

A save file I couldn’t overwrite.  

And the most uncomfortable truth of all—

That even now, even like this,

I am still here.

a Goodbye at Dawn

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

Today was the day I had been dreading.

The day I would take Xena to the sea—not as the living, breathing presence who filled my home, but as ashes held in an urn. It felt like I would be losing her all over again. For days, I had been sitting beside her—talking, crying, writing—trying to make sense of a silence that came too soon, violently, after Zach, whose absence I am still learning to live with.

And then came today.  

Her twelfth birthday.

A day I had always believed she would see in flesh and spirit—but instead, I carried her to the sea.

—

We left just before dawn.  

Geeta, Atif, Anand, and I.

There is something about that hour—the world not fully awake, the sky undecided between darkness and light—that feels like a threshold. It felt right for a goodbye.

We first thought of going near the crematorium at Versova, but life, in its quiet way, redirected us. A step too steep. A small hesitation. And suddenly, we found ourselves at the beach near what used to be Chai Coffee instead.

The sea was at low tide.  

The morning was still.  

And for once, the city was not loud.

—

We walked towards the water.

No ceremony. No performance. Just the four of us, and her.

We opened the urn. And one by one, we let her go.

Her ashes—her bones—her final physical trace—met the sea.

And something unexpected happened.

I felt… calm.

Not the absence of grief, but the presence of something deeper. A quiet rightness. The waves were gentle, lapping at our feet as if they were telling us of all the millions of times they had borne witness to this act. The sea understood the moment better than we did. We stood there, all of us in the water, and watched as she became part of something vast, something endless.

Anand pointed out how a small fragment kept returning with the waves, as though unwilling to leave just yet. And then, eventually, it didn’t.

It went where it was meant to go.

—

There was sadness, of course.  

But there was also peace. And strangely, there were smiles.

Because in that moment, I knew something with certainty—I had given her a life of love. I had given her comfort, dignity, and presence. She was at peace long before today, because she was with me.

And today, I gave her a different kind of peace.

The kind that comes when suffering ends.

—

We came back home.

There was no dramatic silence. No overwhelming collapse.

We spoke. We sat. I made fried eggs for everyone. Life, in its quiet resilience, continued. And then Zuri came to the door—alive, warm, waiting—and in that moment, I was reminded that love, even when broken, does not end.

It changes form. It redistributes itself.

And there is still someone here who needs me.  

And there always will be.

—

I do not feel like I have lost her again.

I feel like I have completed something for her.

Something difficult. Something necessary.

Something a parent must do.

And I know this much—I have been a good parent.

And she knew that.

I Was Loved

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

Are you in those ashes?
Were you burning in the pyre?
Can water take your essence?
Did your love submit to the fire?

As your body burnt I watched;
I could see the cancer still fight;
But wasn’t it you who stood shaking
And loved and played each night?

Who knew that night in May,
When I opened the door of that crate,
You’d make my family complete
And staunchly become my fate?

Your brother I loved;
I called him my first born son;
But how you took over the house –
How you made us run.

You ran too,
even when your limbs said no –
Your eyes shone bright,
Even when I was letting you go.

My love burnt with you in flames,
As it did with each who died before,
And I don’t know if it’s right to say:
But I will always have room for more.

Most don’t understand
How very large love can truly be:
The more it hurts the more it grows –
It bears outward to infinity.

Thank you, all of my children,
I may have shared a few years with you,
But you taught me about life and death
And to cope with a love so very true.

And though now my heart burns still,
Long after your ashes have grown cold,
And pain is a part of my life’s story
They’ll say I was loved when my tale is told.