At age 70 my father said to my sister ki zindagi pal bhar mei guzar gayi. And he was different his last years, more introspective and more altruistic and looking to help than even before. He was always helpful, just more when he got older. He seemed to think his time was numbered and I’d pshaw him.
A photographer friend who’s also in his 80’s posted a photo about our planet’s size in our cosmic system. It made for a spectacular visual. Our itty-bitty planet.
My father made a lucky guess or had a premonition, but in either case he died unexpectedly one night. Any who could have been traveling at that time was traveling.
My mum came up to call me, we took him to The All India Institute of Medical Sciences , we thought he was sick. He’d actually died, perhaps 45 minutes before. He didn’t really wait for anyone.
When I weep I don’t weep for him, though I do sometimes, I wish I’d been nicer. I think that he’s gone on to bigger and better things. I weep because I’ll never see my Father again. That fuzzy halo of white hair, the myriad emotions on his face, his voice, the feel of his fat hands, how he smelled for years. I’ll never sit in a room and talk with him again, never watch a cricket match and hear his comments, never pick up the phone and hear his voice the other end, never cook him anything or make him a cup of tea, never go for a walk or take him to lunch.
In yoga we talk about Maya and the continually changing nature of things. And it becomes easy to see the vicissitudes of life as coming and going. Our anxieties and our goals become almost one in the see-sawing of life. ‘Sometimes you’re up sometimes you’re down…’ isn’t that how the song goes?
Death somehow is one of those things that you can’t ignore. It seems like a tear in the normal ups and downs of life.
How can someone who was there one minute go to being irrevocably not there, not ever?
Death reminds me of death. When I read the news today about LK Advani’s wife, i misread it thinking LK Advani had passed away. And my thought was death spares no-one.
Do you wonder about death my friend?
My death, hitherto unknown, near or closeby, will you be the sleep of peace, my final resting place?
Will I welcome you as friend or foe?
FOUR REASONS 