I see my parents at least once a week and I consider it a failing of mine that I don’t see them at least two or three times given how close they are to me. It’s a tricky game because I truly am afraid of how much I love them. I live on a line segment, both endpoints of which are grief, one anticipatory and the other destined to be a shock no matter what.

My parents could live to be 100, the very Gods could emerge from the cosmic ocean to guarantee me their peaceful passage, yet I will still be stunned when they are gone, in disbelief that they have left me.

— Swati Singh, Daddy Stories, 2024