New chapters and Paraphernalia

These days I sometimes shower in the bathroom you used. It has a strange museum vibe ever since you died. Honestly a lot of the apartment feels like a museum. You set everything up, you choose every little piece. A bathroom is like the most intimate production of space that you enabled. 

While I was in there, I could somehow smell henna, or something similar to henna. And instantly I felt your presence. Every few weeks or months you would bring henna powder (mehendi) and prep it right before going to bed. You'd add some boiled tea leaves, bright red in colour, enhancing the brown it would add to you hair the next day. It wasn't just the color though, the whole house would be full of the mehendi frangrance -  an earthy, strong, deep and brown one. 

There were so many repetitive rituals you would routinely do in rotation (tongue twister?). Like the "jhotti", an Odiya version of the rangoli made of rice and water, white in colour. You'd prepare it after a tiring day and dinner, open the door to the house and make sure to slowly and perfectly create a simplistic and elegant design. So you. 

I'd be sitting with my laptop and this cool comforting sea wind would blow into the bedroom, I'd know instantly that the front door was open and peak at you concentrating in a meditative way. I miss that so much. When these memories hit through such sensory experiences, they really hit hard. I miss you all the time, but moments like these it gets hard to stand straight and tall. 

As I write this, papa rings the bell and comes home. With large bouquets and gifts. You'd be so happy to see the flowers. Today was his second last day of work. Monday will be his last. Then Tuesday will be his first day as a retired man. Weirdly the same day will be when I start my journey as a full time architect, my first long term job. Seems too coincidental doesn't it? 

It's going to be tough without you. Honestly it seems like the next few months might be the toughest. Lately I feel like its sinking in more each day, that you really will never be back. That you didn't just vanish, or leave. That you truly died. There's nothing in the world that can change that. You missed so many milestones. 

The first few were tough, like graduating, getting a teaching job, running a small business on my own. But getting my first long term job with a title that I worked my ass off in university for, without you, hurts the most. My sister landing her first promotion in a long time the same day as I got the job, feels worse. Papa retiring the same week as we start a new journey, feels worse. Strangely, it all feels planned too. 

There's so much change coming now. We'll move from this bank quarter housing to a rental or our own property in a city that we never thought we'd have a permanent home in. Papa will be at home all day for the first time. He might decide new journeys for himself and he might cry everyday and feel lonely too. We'll be in each other's spaces all the time. We'll spend time together more than we ever have in decades. We'll pack up a life you designed in this home in brown smelly boxes and move without you for the first time ever. We'll have to do your beloved job of setting up and interior decoration on our own. 

It's a lot. And all of this is making your absence bigger than ever. Time doesn't heal shit. Time just changes the challenges thrown at us. 

Love you mummy, 

Ritun