Year Four - An Unfolding

Many moons ago, Mom and I watched the movie Serendipity. Like every classic early-2000s romantic comedy, it centered around two people who meet, fall in love almost instantly, separate, and then spend years somehow finding their way back to each other.

Afterward, as was our tradition after all mother-daughter rom-com nights, we went to Ghirardelli’s, ordered a giant sundae, and dissected the movie far more seriously than it probably deserved.

Mom’s perspective was simple:
“What you are looking for often finds you, depending on what signals you are sending into the universe and whether you are truly ready for it.”

I rolled my eyes immediately.

What followed was one of our many sprawling conversations about fate versus free will, God versus destiny, karmic cycles, and whether life unfolds through intention, coincidence, or something larger we cannot quite explain.

Mom believed deeply. I questioned everything.

At the time, I was in art school, where my entire identity revolved around deconstructing systems, challenging assumptions, and intellectualizing every possible human experience. If I could summarize my undergraduate years, it would sound something like this: trust no one, debate everything, search endlessly for truth, and watch one too many X-Files marathons.

At the time, Mom’s worldview felt overly simplistic to me.

Now I understand that simplicity and wisdom are not always opposites.

Fast forward to the fall of last year. I was lying in bed mindlessly scrolling through Pinterest when a quote surfaced seemingly out of nowhere:

“What you are seeking is seeking you.” I laughed out loud.

Immediately, I thought of Mom.

There she was again, somehow woven into another ordinary moment years after her death. What struck me most was not the quote itself but how differently I received it now. Somewhere between grief, motherhood, marriage, ambition, exhaustion, and simply living more life, I had softened toward ideas I once dismissed so quickly.

Not because I suddenly believed life was magical in some cinematic sense, but because I had started noticing how belief itself shapes the way we move through the world.

Over the years, I have watched people survive devastating losses, impossible transitions, illness, heartbreak, disappointment, and uncertainty. The people who emerged with warmth and openness intact were rarely the ones who avoided suffering. They were often the ones who continued choosing meaning despite it.

Maybe belief does not change fate.

Maybe it changes our willingness to recognize possibility.

A week after rediscovering that quote, Thomas and I made an offer on our first home.

The moment we walked inside, we both knew.

We had only just begun talking about moving because our lease was ending, and suddenly this space appeared in front of us as though it had quietly been waiting all along. I remember smiling to myself and thinking again:

“What you seek is seeking you.”

Our apartment number became 701, a variation of Mom’s favorite number sequence. Growing up, she would pay me Rs. 701 or Rs. 71 for completing whatever wildly important task she had assigned me that day. The amount itself never made much logical sense, but to her numbers carried emotion, symbolism, and affection all at once.

A few weeks later, while waiting to transfer our down payment, the banker casually mentioned that 520 is used in Chinese culture as a way of saying “I love you.”

I just sat there staring at him for a moment.

By then, the home-buying process had become emotionally complicated for me. Everyone around us focused on logistics, paperwork, inspections, and finances while I quietly carried the ache of wishing Mom were there beside me through all of it.

I wanted her excitement.

Her opinions. Her commentary. Her presence.

But somewhere throughout the process, tiny moments kept surfacing, feeling strangely tender. Little coincidences. Small echoes. Gentle reminders that love does not always disappear simply because someone no longer exists physically in front of you.

A few months later, I found myself lying on our couch staring at the ceiling, reflecting on the strange sequence of events that had brought me to this stage of life. Suddenly, it hit me that maybe these moments had been surrounding me all along.

Tiny messages. Unexpected softness. Love reveals itself in ordinary places. Holy cow.

It felt like my own personal Interstellar moment. (Yes, another movie reference. And yes, I absolutely recommend it.)

Who really knows what happens after death?

Do we continue somewhere else?
Do we reconnect with the people whose souls feel forever intertwined with ours?
Does love simply change form?

Or are these just the stories we tell ourselves to survive absence?

The older I get, the less interested I become in certainty and the more interested I become in wonder.

Maybe grief changes the way we notice the world.
Maybe loss sharpens our sensitivity to meaning.
Or maybe love leaves traces behind in ways we cannot fully explain.

Whatever the answer is, I have decided to return to my search for truth. But this time, I am no longer searching through skepticism alone. I am searching through openness, intuition, memory, and attention.

At the start of another year without her, thank you for continuing to keep her alive through your stories and memories. Every text, every shared moment, every recollection allows another small part of her to remain present in the world.

We are deeply grateful for all of you.

I hope we continue carrying forward the lineage of warmth, hospitality, generosity, and love that Mom and Ba began long before us.

For now, I have made peace with her absence.

And through this new detective phase of mine, I find joy in bringing her to life for Lila through stories, rituals, gestures, and memory.

Death may create physical absence, but it does not have to mean disappearance.

Until next time, keep on keeping on.