Sixteen months have gone by since my mom left us. They say you feel the presence of your loved ones once they’re gone. Honestly, what I feel is her absence. A lot of it, actually – during the good days, the bad days and everything in between. She was my go-to person for everything, good or bad. As someone who is extremely uncomfortable expressing feelings, I never really needed to express anything to her because somehow she just knew exactly what I was feeling. And now with her gone, it feels like a part of me is just forever lost.

I wish I could erase June 2025 from my memory.

We were in the middle of packing up a decade and a half’s worth of memories and our entire life for our big move to the other side of the world. Little did I know that the house and life we had built in a city we absolutely loved, weren’t the only things I was going to say goodbye to. Just 15 hours after all of our stuff was loaded onto a shipping container, I received that horrible phone call telling me that my mom was no more.

I was so caught up with the move that my last call with my mom was precisely 30-second long where she told me she wasn’t feeling great and that she’ll talk to me the next morning. She almost always did a video call, even if it was just for a quick question. But for some reason, that day she made an audio call. She was hospitalized a few hours later and within a day and half, she was gone. I never got to see her again or have that one last proper conversation with her.

Within hours of getting the news of her passing, I was on my way to India. Just like that, I was leaving behind our first house, the city my children called their home and a place where we had built our life and created some of our happiest memories. There was no time to say goodbye to our friends or even process the fact that the big move was already underway.

Even harder to process was the fact that I was returning to a home without mom.

All these years, going to India always meant being able to see mom. She couldn’t travel to LA so my annual trips were primarily to spend time with her. In fact, my move to India was largely for her, and to be closer to her because seeing her just once a year didn’t seem nearly enough.

Ever since my childhood, she had been the one constant in my life. Even when she wasn’t physically around, she was always just a phone call away. Every morning after school drop-offs, I would video call her, and she would be right there waiting for my call with a big smile. She was very much a part of my daily routine, even thousands of miles away.

And it’s true, moms just know everything. The way I said hello was all it took for her to know how I was feeling – happy, sad, angry, sick – all of it!  Heck, she even knew I was pregnant both times even before I told her or anyone else.

Over the past year, I have realized that grief is like an unexpected guest. It stops by unannounced, without any warning. It creeps up on you out of nowhere – randomly in the middle of a perfectly fine day or during a happy celebration or midway through a book. I have also realized that while time does help heal a bit,the grief doesn’t necessarily decrease or simply go away. You just learn to live around it and with it, while life ruthlessly moves on.

There are days when it’s difficult to ignore, and those are the days I just can’t stop thinking about what it would have been like to be finally living in the same city as her. All of the things we couldn’t stop talking about in the months leading up to the move.

She wanted to celebrate her and dad’s 50th wedding anniversary that December. She was excited about me coming over for sleepovers with the boys. She was looking forward to spending more time with the boys and most importantly, making up for the lost time from the 14 years I had been away.

And I was looking forward to finally taking care of her. Being there for her. Having my kids get to know her better and experience her love up close. And just being able to simply see her whenever I wanted to.

All of that now just lives in the unfulfilled “what if” part of my head.

Dear ma, sixteen months later, I still find myself wanting to pick up the phone and tell you the random details of my day or just listen to all the advice you would always had that I would totally ignore. It’s not that I haven’t accepted that you’re gone but it’s just that on some days I just need my mom. No matter how old I grow, there will always be a part of me that will long for you. Rest easy, ma. Until we meet again!