Dear Parvati,

It's the beginning of a new year again. Not that anything has changed since last letter. Still, I hate not writing to you, even if there isn't much for me to say these days. I still have the same job, same boyfriend, and same friends.

I don't need to write to you anymore, but I don't want to forget you. I know that's a silly thing to fear, but I'm still worried that if I don't think about you I'll somehow lose the memory of you too. It's getting hard to write these letters when there isn't much to write about though. I have to really try to find things to write to you about.

Speaking of things to write about, the D.A. had a reunion, the first one outside the usual anniversary of the battle. It was an actual party, a real, happy party. Almost everyone turned up, but there were a few people who didn't, or wouldn't come. They come during the anniversary of the battle though, so maybe they're just not ready to come to a party yet. I know that I took a while to talk myself into it.

The party was a great. I got to sit around and just talk to people that I hadn't had a chance to catch up with everyone since before the battle. I guess that I had kind of cut myself off a little bit, but everyone else seems to have kept in contact with everyone else.

I know that you would want to know that to know that our friends are doing OK. They've moved on pretty well. There are still scars there, but there will always be scars there. For the most part though, they're good. They've moved on with their lives, a lot of them better than I have. At least, I don't think that any of them are writing letters to their dead family members.

The real reason I'm writing this letter is because of you. You've been gone almost 4 years now, and I still haven't completely let go of you yet. Every else at the reunion has been able to move on, has stopped looking back and wishing for what could be. I haven't, because I still don't want to lose you.

Everyone else has let go, so why can't I? I know that you're gone, and that you won't come back. I've accepted that, and I know that I can't change that, no matter how much I want to. I now that you and I will never talk again. I know that you're not going to come back as a ghost. I know that.

So why is your memory still haunting me? Why can't I let you leave me alone? You always were there for me to lean on, to offer a willing shoulder for me to cry on. Even when you left, I still had these letters. It wasn't the same, but it was something.

Maybe that's why you still won't leave me alone, because I haven't left you alone. Is that it? is that the reason why I'm still clinging on to you? Why, when everyone has been able to escape the shadow of the battle, I still have nightmares?

I thought that I had moved on, that I could let your memory rest in peace. I realize now that I was wrong. The letters I wrote were ways of me talking to you, to think about what you would say to me, how you would comfort me. I still haven't been able to move on.

I've already let a lot of you go, but now it's time for the final bit to leave me too. I'm going to stop writing to you, at least until I can stop using you as my comforter. Then I'll know that I've been able to move on, and I'll have proven to myself that I can live without you, instead of just existing with out you.

I still love you, now and forever,

Padma