He was the greatest - the kindest, the humblest, the most patient... He worked hard - he never stopped working until last year, when he was eighty three. Eighty three!

He was my favorite - the most favorite in the whole entire world. He was the world to me and I adored him. I was his favorite - he loved me like nobody else. Like nobody else he was proud of me.

The endless hours he spent with me, playing games, reading books, taking me to parks, to plays, riding the metro just for the fun of t. He fulfilled every passing whim of mine - he simply worshiped me.

It is so sad to realize that the older I grew, the further apart we drifted. For the past few years i saw him only a handful of times. I missed him, but I am sure he was the one to miss me more...

And now that he's gone... it's hard to really grasp the fact, let alone to reconcile with it. Being so far away makes it that much harder. It's hard to reconcile with the fact that I keep going on, even when this loss does not seem to have an immediate impact on my everyday reality... And yet I go on, knowing that if it weren't for school, if it weren't for the busy and rigorous life that I am in now, I would have fallen apart in million pieces, in a heartbeat. Fallen apart because of grief, because of guilt, remorse and regret.

I could have been there with him. I could have been there for him. There were so many things that I could have done for him, so many ways that I could show him just how much I loved him...

So much pain and guilt and remorse...