‘White Lillies’: An intimate chronicle of a woman through terrains of loss, grief, and enduring pain

What happens when you lose the one through whom you learned love? And what if you lose not one, but two such anchors? What do you do when you are left with holes of their shape in your heart? How do you move forward when the only desire left in you is the longing to have loved them just a little harder, held them a little longer? White Lilies: An Essay on Grief by Vidya Krishnan is a tender yet aching meditation on these questions – an intimate chronicle of her journey through the terrain of loss, grief, and enduring pain.

An unending loss

In August, when the marigolds were in full bloom, Krishnan did not return to Delhi. Instead, she flew to Chennai to be with her dying grandmother – the woman who had raised her, fed her, and loved her with the quiet fierceness only grandmothers know. As she watched her haemorrhage before her eyes, Krishnan could do nothing but hold her wrinkled hand, the same hand that once comforted her in childhood.

They cremated her on a Sunday afternoon.

By Monday morning, Krishnan was back in Delhi. Grief-stricken and trying to move on, though barely. Her partner, Ali, had dinner plans that evening. He offered to cancel...

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