A Year Without You: A Tribute to my Grandmother

Can you name a person who loves you more than your parents?

While growing up, who was the one person who would be patient enough to narrate bed-time stories while you prepare yourself to sleep?

Who would take up the role of an angel while you are being scolded off by your parents?

Who is the one person who would pamper and care for you more than anybody else in this world?

Yes, that one person has to be your grandmom. Remember how your grandmom would shower infinite affection and yearning towards you irrespective of your various misconducts. While many of you wait for your summer or winter holidays to give that enjoyable visit to your grandmother in her native place, I was fortunate enough to have my paternal grandmom beside me while I was growing up. She was the one person who would love all her grandchildren selflessly without any confinements. Her talks were ever-fascinating. She would occasionally recall about her childhood days, her mischievous activities and the endless amount of scolding her parents had to offer as a result of those. Those fables filled my childhood and my life wouldn’t have been complete without her memorable presence. She would continuously boast that I was her favourite grandchild and that would make me extremely proud. She would repeatedly cast jokes about various events of life, to which we had so many occasions of laughing sessions. Like all generous grandmothers, she would heap praises about each of her grandchildren in front of her visitors and we would swell in pride in those moments.

The most eventful accounts with my grandmom has to be the times in which me and my brother were harmless victims of our mom’s scary scoldings and beatings. Our grandmom would appear even before our distress calls like a super-woman to save our lives. My brother, along with me should actually owe our existence to our super-grandmom, without whom our scolding-sessions with mom would have been much more nightmarish! Honestly, I really miss those thrashings from mom when granny posed as the savior.

During her concluding days, she developed Alzheimer Disease, due to which she couldn’t obliterate quite a great amount of things and episodes of her life. She even failed to recognize the family members. It was a sad affair, which was normal with people as they grew old. But even then, she would always sport her iconic smile.  And then, on a certain warm morning in 2015, when people were relishing another holiday on the account of Gandhi Jayanti, our grandmother left us for her heavenly abode, leaving us all alone within ourselves. Her presence is missed by all of us. Her evergreen smile at every possible talk with us is what we always long to see. Her innocent rants about the house and the vicinity not being clean still echoes through our heads. Her evening time which was occupied by the Assamese news channels and daily soaps will be missed too. Her selfies with me during her last days will always be cherished within my remembrance. One year has passed and this past year was one of those loneliest times ever in our lives.

Happy Anniversary, Aita! Your happy flashbacks will eternally remain within us!

Do watch us from above, always.