In a photo, holding each other’s hands with a small child nestled tightly between their arms, it seemed, even for just a second, that there was no force on earth that could separate them.

But the truth is, my parents were separated for seven years before they could be together again. Their commitment and devotion to each other made them seem all the more beautiful in my eyes.

I find myself being hit by random waves of intense emotion that occur a few times a month. They cannot be put into words, as that would not do justice to the depth of emotion. Tinges of pain and burning around the chest is the best I can put it.

Now, you might be thinking I should go see a doctor, but I know what it is. It’s grief.

I am a very sentimental person, and I love to document memories of my family.

Growing up, my mother always told my siblings to be extra nice to me because I was a sensitive child.

Sunday nights are particularly the worst, as I will lie in bed on my phone going through photos of my parents when they were much younger.

I occasionally will also go through my parents’ photo albums. One is a large green book filled with photos of them when they were newlyweds, new parents, when they first moved to America and so much more.

I stared for so long just admiring the light on their faces, admiring how in love they were with their little family. It is the most beautiful expression of humanity, a love and longing for life.

There has always been a pack of letters inside the photo album. I mostly ignored them and would mindlessly flip page after page. However, one day I became curious, and I decided to steal a few.

The letters were written in Bengali, and I couldn’t read them. It was March of 2024 when I sent a picture of a letter dated 1996 to my cousin to translate it. Hours passed, and I waited for him to get back to me. When he finally did, I read it and suddenly felt an overwhelming surge of grief take me aback.

It was a love letter from my father to my mother. It talked of a private rendezvous, seeing one another in a dream and missing each other. I cried reading it, as I felt the emotions in the letter even almost 30 years later.

Even just writing this made me choke up. Anticipatory grief is not healthy, yet I think it’s human. Grief is just love with nowhere to go.

I think about my parents’ love for each other, love for us, and their love for God. For some reason, it makes me cry, and I find myself reading that letter from time to time when I miss them.

I keep photos of them in my wallet and on my desk. I write about them incessantly because they inspire me. They will never know, but they don’t need to. However, I think they secretly know.

Recently, my father lost his mother, and seeing him mourn made me inevitably think about the future. It is painful, but what is life without suffering? In all stories of love, someone must leave first, and that is a tale as old as time.

I won’t sit here pretending like I have an answer as to why we feel anticipatory grief or how to treat it. I’ve accepted that I will have to live with it, treating it like an old friend that lingers quietly by the door.

There is not enough time on Earth for me to pour all my love into my parents, and there aren’t enough words to suffice. I think love is so much more than just romantic. Love is knowing someone can’t possibly be replaced.

To know about their childhood and younger days feels like a form of prayer. I consider it a part of my life’s goal to record their stories and memories down, as it would be a sin not to.

There is so much beauty in keeping their story alive, even if it’s just with my tears.