🚨 this story contains a little discription of funeral. Please read with caution.
Soft cries filled the air, rising and falling somewhere in the background. I sat there with swollen eyes, hollow and burning, carrying nothing inside me except a deep, aching emptiness. My gaze remained fixed on the woman lying in front of me.
She looked beautiful—more beautiful than I had ever seen her. Bangles adorned her wrists, anklets rested against her feet, and a deep red saree wrapped her fragile form. Once, the sight of her dressed like this would have filled my heart with happiness. But not now. Not today.
The woman who lay there so still was the one I had loved the most. The woman who had been my second mother—no, perhaps my first. She was the one who raised me, who held my fingers and taught me how to walk, who shaped my words when I first learned to speak. She was my home.
Now she lay there, lifeless, her eyes gently closed, as if she were merely asleep. Her face was calm—unnaturally calm. I had never seen such peace resting on her features before. In life, her forehead always carried lines of worry, and her eyes were forever heavy with unspoken sorrow, even when her lips curved into a smile. Pain had been her silent companion.
Yet now, all of it was gone.
She looked peaceful, free from the weight she had carried for so long.
She was my Nani.
My Nani was a wonderful woman—a rare and precious gem in my life. Words could never fully capture what she meant to me. I loved her deeply, respected her endlessly, and in her presence, I had always felt safe. Even in her silence, she continued to teach me—this time, about love, loss, and the ache of letting go.
“She was a good woman,” I heard someone say.
Yes, she was. More than good—she was the best. Gentle to the point of hesitation, she never wanted to burden anyone with her presence or her pain. She asked for little, accepted even less, and learned to make peace with whatever life handed her.
Yet beneath that quiet surrender lived a courage I have never seen in anyone else. A strength that did not announce itself, that did not demand recognition. She endured silently, loved selflessly, and stood tall even when life tried to break her.
She was the bravest woman I have ever known.
She was still in her teenage years when marriage was placed upon her shoulders. Before she could truly understand life, responsibility became her constant companion. And when her third child was only two years old, fate took away her husband, leaving her alone in a world that showed little mercy.
She raised three children by herself. With no one to lean on, she worked in other people’s houses, took up whatever work came her way, and returned home each evening with tired hands and a heavier heart. Time moved on, indifferent and unforgiving, and her children slowly grew up.
In the process, she gave away her youth without ever realizing it. Her dreams faded quietly, replaced by survival. She sacrificed not just her happiness, but her entire life—right until her very last breath.
She suffered. And she kept suffering. Silently, endlessly, without complaint.
The woman who had sacrificed everything for others became hesitant to ask for even a single meal in her old age. That was the cruelty of life—how it teaches the kindest souls to shrink themselves.
I watched her suffer as I grew up. I saw the pain she carried quietly, never letting it spill into words. She loved me the most, and I loved her just the same. I wanted to give her the world—to place joy in her hands the way she had once placed her life in ours. It would have taken only a few more years. Just a little more time, and I would have given her everything she had never asked for.
I wish she had waited a little longer.
But she didn’t.
She left without ever tasting even a moment of true happiness. Just two days ago, I had met her. She was perfectly normal—frail, yes, burdened with her usual illnesses, but still there. Still breathing, still smiling softly. And then, in the blink of an eye, she was gone. Just like that.
There were so many things I wanted to tell her. Words I had saved for later, for someday.
I wish I could see her one last time.
I wish I could talk to her one last time.
Just one last time.
