Loss of my grandma

I lost my grandma last night. I am living half a world apart and with so many work commitments, I can't make it to her last rites. I wasn't there during her final hours. It feels so wrong.

My grandma empowered me. In my family, after about a dozen boy cousins born before I arrived, she agreed to look after the local temples of goddesses single handedly and prayed every day for a daughter to born in our generation.

The day I arrived, I was smothered with immense love. To be a girl child and adored in my place of birth was quite rare. My father had his heart full upon my birth and my mum was the happiest. The glue that held together the belief in her was my aai.

Aai and I became inseparable since the first day. She was there for the first four years of my life without a fault. I was a little girl with very strong choices and not a very good eater. The whole society would say like feed her whatever. My grandma changed the way girls are brought up by being there for every single birth of a girl child and guiding an era of better women's nutrition.

She made sure that I learnt early on about how as a girl I was to return back home after beating, if needed and not getting beaten by the world. She launched my little sustained state level career in swimming, read me lots of literature and history. My mum is a certified genius and has 2 other amazing sisters. All her daughters are idols to the world in their own rights. I always saw the world through their pov. And, they encouraged me to become my own person.

A big part of what I have achieved today is directly because of her. She was the first one to give me courage to dump 'The One' and go on my journey of an exponential self improvement.

I am a result of her legacy and we will meet one day again, my aai! Till then, I will ever miss you.