It feels surreal to even write this. I know I’ve spent two months in this world without you now, but if I close my eyes, time has stood still the last time I hugged you and hasn't moved since. I can still recall the day I found out you had left us, Bada Nani. My entire childhood was snatched away from me in the span of an afternoon - two missed calls from Bapa and I knew I'd lost you. How do I grieve what I cannot yet accept? 

If I were to begin to answer the question of what my aunt Renuka Mishra - my Bada Nani - meant to the world, I would be undertaking an insurmountable task. The only person I know who is good at insurmountable tasks is you Bada Nani, but I’m sorry I’m not there yet. 

So I'll not attempt it. I'd rather try to answer a more feeble yet just as significant a question of what you meant to me. But how does one define a center? You were the social, cultural, and familial core of our world. In the words of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, you were my umbilical cord to our family's history and reality. Everything feels a little less real, a little less known, a little less grounded now that you're not here. 

I am finally at the age where I can look back at my childhood, at the people who shaped it and who shaped me into the adult I'm finally acknowledging I am. Everywhere I look, I can only find you. You’re there in Rondi’s name and her love for history, in Maa’s devotion and her feminism, in Bapa’s stoicism (and the safety pin on his blanket). You’re there in Kaka’s obstinacy and Lara Nani’s warmth. In some ways, you and Sana Nani reside in the love Rondi and I share. Most of all, you’re in every room, every wall, and every window of Sonepur - the only constant home I’ll ever know. 

I think of early mornings waking up in your room to the sound of your faint prayers, the light streaming in through the ajar door. I think of every evening on the terrace where you'd let me follow you around with a bucket of water while you tended to your plants. I think of your white sarees and the quintessential Horlicks cup in the morning. I think of the many walks down to Kaintha Tal and then to your Samiti Mandir for Thursday bhajans through the fields. The only light was from your trusted torch and a trembling 9-year-old me would spend the entire journey latched onto you, safe just knowing it is you I’m with. 

Part of me still thinks that I'll go back to Sonepur, burst into your room, and find you reading a book. You'll embrace me and say the familiar "Renii, kenta acchu?". I know I can never go back, but I hope you know how much it meant. Being related to you, being loved by you, and being a part of your tremendous life is an honour.

You've left me with so many questions about how to live, what to do, who to be? Questions I thought I’ll have the time to ask you, but will now spend my whole life trying to answer alone. 

But I hope that while I navigate my space in this world, you are still there. I hope that even though you're gone, you'll never be too far away. You know those countless mornings in your Sonepur room where I, half asleep, would hear you lightly stirring about your day? I couldn't see you then but I knew you were there. I hope the rest of my life is like those early mornings – I hope the feeling of your presence never diminishes. 

I hope that's how it is forever, Badanani.