Prema as Radical Presence

Mirabai's poetry overflows with an intense, embodied love for Krishna—a love that insists on presence and encounter rather than distance or withdrawal. In anticipatory grief, we often abandon the present moment to live in a future of loss. Prema invites the opposite: a radical commitment to meeting the person as they are today, not as a ghost we're already mourning. This bhakti practice dissolves the boundary between devotion and daily attention. When we love with prema, we stop preparing for absence and instead consecrate each ordinary interaction—a conversation, a meal, a silence—as sacred. For those experiencing anticipatory grief, this means reclaiming the aliveness of the relationship while it still exists, transforming dread into a fierce celebration of presence.