The past year has been a very difficult one.

Not just because I now have two kids to look after – but because my family lost one of its brightest jewels. My baby cousin, my uncle’s daughter, Shraddha, who was three and half months shy of her third birthday when she passed away suddenly.

That has been a very difficult thing to accept and overcome.

She was such a star and her passing has filled me with so much despair and outrage. And some guilt. In the past year, the number of times I had started writing, only to throw it away have been countless. I have been under a cloud of “what does it matter anyway?”

So my cyber life has been more than a little neglected.

But it has been that, that has sustained me these past few difficult months. My not-just-cyber pals-anymore pals have been mailing me, sending me virtual hugs ever so often, not just for me, but for my whole family, that the grief seems slightly bearable.

There will never be acceptance – how can one just accept the fact that this child, who had every right to a fantastic future, who had everything going for her, should be snatched away so rudely, so soon?

But, with a little help from my friends, the hole seems a little less hollow. So thank you – you know who you are.

October 31, 2009. Exactly a year since you passed on.

You are missed – every single minute of every single day. Not a day goes by when we don’t think about you, your sharp intellect, your generous heart, your joyful spirit. And not a day goes by when we don’t wonder how it might have been, had you been allowed to live a long and fulfilled life, as every child deserves to.

You would have been three years and eight months old today. Studying in LKG. Joining anna in his sloka and singing classes. Lighting up everyone’s lives.

I wonder what you’d look like now.

I hope you are at peace, dear heart. Beyond pain, hurt and fear. In a happy place. And one day, we will meet again. Till then, every minute will be spent in thinking of you.

Dear little Shraddha.