I am his first grandchild and I was/ is/ will remain his favorite. He tried to teach me Math and told me all the stories in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata before I was five. He told me the secret to making good tea and endless stories from his time as the Chief AME of the Government of Orissa.
He protected my sorry ass from Mum’s wrath and told me I look stunning the first time I wore a saree (even though I know I looked ugly as fuck – I have pictures, no, you may not see them).
The problem is I was too much in a funk of my own when he started going downhill and I failed to understand him and be there for him. And for that I will never be able to forgive myself.
Anyhoo, I got my second tattoo done in May in his honor. It is his official signature with a picture of the first plane he ever was in charge of. It is an everyday reminder of how lucky I am to have an amazing grandfather and how proud I am of him. It is also a reminder of how I failed on an epic scale to tell him those things. That I care, that my chest puffs out with pride when I talk about him, that he is one of the few people I love unconditionally, and that I was just being a humongous pile of ratshit teenager.
People tell me he lives on in my heart and that he is smiling down at me. All of it is bullshit, escapist strategies to feel better.
You have one chance, one chance to help make their (people you love) lives better in ways, small and big. If you blow it, you will find yourself wishing you had done things differently, yearning for a redo, and writing blog posts that far from serve the purpose.
