Goodbye Aai…

Six years ago I lost a soul-mate – my brother, gone too soon, leaving my heart forever fractured.  And yet here I am again, the fracture now deepened into a canyon of grief…the only relief coming from the river of memories flowing within.

I lost my Granny two weeks ago. My Mom lost her mother and the world lost a beautiful, courageous, gifted soul. She had been ill – she struggled with health issues all her life really but these last 2 years were particularly hard, fate particularly cruel. You would never have known though…she smiled through every hardship!

I was with her when it happened…holding her hand, watching her ragged breathing stop, one hand on her faint pulse until that too faded away. It was surreal. She was gone and I remember walking out of the room to tell Mom…calmly, matter-of-factly even, that she had passed. We had been preparing ourselves you see, as well as the living can prepare for impeding death. Even wishing for it, for her, because we couldn’t bear to watch her suffer and because the woman we knew and loved so very dearly had left much earlier, leaving only a hollow, fragile shell. Well, that’s what I tell myself anyway.

I feel like I haven’t yet begun to grieve. It’s feels weird. I keep waiting for the acute searing pangs of pain that assaulted me when my brother passed but they don’t come. Instead there’s a continuous, dull, aching pain that weighs me down, a persistent malaise that heightens the all-pervading, ever present emptiness. She’s gone and once again the World still turns. Diminished. Weird. Expected. Understood. I cried me a river six years ago but now my eyes are dry…but sadder. I wonder whether that’s what happens over time as we lose the people we love – they settle in the amplified sadness of our eyes.

She raised me. I was her first grandchild, her only granddaughter and the apple of her eye. I like to think so anyway. If I had to describe her in a word it would be ‘Amazon’. She was a warrior for as long as I can remember, even until the end. When she was young, circumstances necessitated a fighting spirit and I like to think that having found the warrior within, she embraced her wholeheartedly. She was like that Aai – All or Nothing. And for all the challenges she faced I never once heard her express disappointment or regret. She just faced every trial with an inherent grace and dignity that left us all in awe.

I wish I had her strength. I wish I were half as brave as she was. I wish I could tell her one more time how much she means to me, how lucky I am to have been loved by her, how deeply I love her and how profoundly I miss her. I wish she were still here – unbroken, whole, wise. I wish, I wish, I wish…but mostly I wish her Happy wherever she is – and I strongly suspect that she’s with my brother and her siblings having a rocking party somewhere, enjoying herself while looking down on us in benevolence!

Another Angel in my Sky!

I Love You Aai ❤

Always & Forever…

NaPoWriMo – Day 16

With this one – I’m all caught up.

This one is In Memorium of the innocent lives lost in Boston. Words seem so empty at such times, but they are all I have and so they will have to do. Rest. In. Peace. 

Grief

I’m tired of grieving. Really I am. And it’s not even been a week since it all began. We lost a family member last week and now today on the 4^th Anniversary of my brother’s passing; my Mom called in the morning to tell me of my uncle’s passing – my Dad’s older brother, whom we called Bhau (brother). He had been unwell recently, nothing serious, but a few chest pains and a couple of trips to the ICU later, he seemed to be doing okay. This morning he was fine and even opened the door to his younger brother, over for a visit, then went in and sat down, had a massive heart attack and was gone all in the space of a few seconds. C’est la vie.

When it comes to death and condolences what can one say or do really that makes a difference? Nothing. Perhaps being present is enough in that the bereaved family feels comforted by the presence of people who loved the one gone as much as they did. And for those of us who cannot be present, we call, we write, we mourn silently from afar. My uncle had a fulfilling life. He was 79 and leaves behind a loving family, both immediate and extended that loved and respected him when he lived, and will honor his memory and miss him terribly now that he’s gone. If that isn’t a sign of a life well lived, I don’t know what is. Mom says my aunt and he would have been married 50 years in 2014…a milestone missed. Still, he didn’t suffer and went peacefully, not a bad way to go, inasmuch as these things go I suppose. And so another family member lost within a matter of days.

All the events of the past few days fill me with a longing for my childhood, a time when life was so much simpler, carefree and joyous. When tragedy meant a scraped knee, a lost pencil, missing the school picnic, getting yelled at by the Principal, exams…you know, the little stuff that seemed so catastrophic then. Oh that life was as simple now! How I long for those days when the worst of my fears and most of my tears could be kissed away by Mom. I do it now for Ishaan and I dread the day, all too soon, when my Mommy Magic won’t be quite so magical any more.

I’m generally a happy person, or at least I try my best to be. So these past days, grieving as I’ve been, have drained my spirit more than I care to admit, more so because the onslaught seems unrelenting. With all that’s happening, I haven’t had time to think about my brother and the fact that I’ve survived 4 years with him being gone…all of us have. It feels strange that this day will now be in memorium for two members of my family. I remember entering the house on that fateful day 4 years ago, my brother laid out in our living room, people everywhere, blurry faces and anonymous hands, leading me gently, guiding me to his side, holding me as I wept…and I remember Bhau, sitting next to me, holding my hand and weeping with me. I had never seen him cry before and somehow his tears strengthened me. Thank you for that Bhau. You will be missed.

As for B, what can I say that I haven’t already said before? I lost a part of me forever when you left, and although I miss you every second of every day, I feel your presence by my side always, sometimes invisible, but most often in Ishaan. Love you forever – always have, always will.

And now, I’m asking, no, I’m telling whoever is in charge…my family needs a break. Send us some Joy.

Tragedy

I never thought I would be writing a post like this ever.  But just when you think you’ve seen all there is to see, Life throws you a curve ball that might as well have come on from another planet for all its suddenness. But I will be honest, this post is more for my own sanity than in memoriam…I just don’t know how else to deal with all these crazy emotions right now. So I’m doing the only thing I am half decent at – writing – and hoping that somehow it will prove therapeutic.

We lost a family member this week – unexpectedly, tragically & horrendously at the hands of another. I’m not getting into details about how and what and when, coz this isn’t about that. Nor the why, coz frankly all we have are theories none of which I want to discuss here. Suffice it to say that we have now lost two family members through a senseless, heinous act of violence. We, none of us, saw this coming, although in retrospect, we feel we should have done something, could have done something. Retrospect, I’m beginning to hate the word. Why does everything have to be so much clearer in retrospect when what we really need is clarity in the present? Why?

I heard about what had happened yesterday morning, and last night, after an endless day of phone calls and discussions, I found myself all keyed up, a nervous wreck, wide awake until at 3.30 am, when I forced myself to try and get some shut eye. We were never close, the two of us, but we were family and that means something. I close my eyes and I can see her face and feel her pain. Everything seems so unreal and bizarre; it’s hard to believe it ever really happened at all. How did things come to this? How did we let this happen? Did we let this happen? Was this our fault somehow? Why couldn’t we save her? And the other? Both. Why? Why? Why? Surely, surely there must have been some way we could have prevented this double tragedy? The questions just run in an endless loop in my head, and there are no answers. None that make any sense anyhow.

The first thing I did when I came to know is call my Mom of course. Who else would I call? I had to break the news to her, and she was stunned and shocked and we said the inane things people say to each other on such occasions – empty platitudes to comfort ourselves, to trick our minds into believing the world is still a sane place. But try as you might there are some things that defy rational thought. They are inexplicable and secretly I think we would prefer them to stay that way – coz if we can actually rationalize them, isn’t that the scariest thing? What does that say about who we are? Am I rambling? Of course I am. Forgive me…it’s just…it is what it is and I’m just exhausted from all this thinking.

I’m not sure what I’m feeling at the moment…there’s a toxic cocktail of emotions – grief, rage, frustration, despair, an immense sadness and exhaustion that I feel deep within my bones – and all of it weighing down on me, crushing my spirit. There’s a restlessness that makes me want to pick up the phone and talk to Mom mingled with the need to forget the whole thing ever happened. There’s so much confusion in my head – I don’t know what I believe any more. I understand that this too will pass. I have my own little family to look after and eventually the acuteness will give way to a dull, ever-present ache. But this will never go away. Ever. And the fact that it happened at all has changed something within me that I can’t quite define. Perhaps I will trust less – in people and in my judjment of them, be more watchful, if I’m lucky I’ll stop before the paranoia sets in…but things will never again be quite the same. I never imagined in my most horrific nightmares that my family would have to go through such trying times. The media circus, the brutal nature of the crime, and ultimately the utter waste of two lives ruined for no good reason – this is not a good time for my family.

We need prayers. We need calm. We need some semblance of normal. We need for all of this to go away so we can get a good night’s sleep. All I can think of to say to the one who is gone – Rest in Peace. May you find happiness now wherever you are and know that you will be remembered always in our hearts.

Here is something I wrote last night when I couldn’t sleep…

Darkness falls,

The sun eclipsed,

The moon in shadow,

Dreams lie doomed,

On the stone cold floor.

How quiet she lies,

Unheard, unsung,

Voice forever silenced,

On the stone cold floor.

Lifeless she lies,

No  breath, just death,

Still and icy,

Heart  lies bleeding

On the stone cold floor.

Crushed to the bone,

Deathly still,

Spirit rising immortal,

From the stone cold floor.

Rest in peace now Gentle one,

Freedom awaits…

Beyond the stone cold floor.