My Mother departs...

Sir,
I meant i was amazed by your equanimity in the face of grief.

The passive countenance of the workers in graveyards and crematoria comes, i think, from getting habituated to the drama of death that accompanies the 'merchandise' ( the body) they have to handle in their profession. Its akin to surgeons developing a blind spot to the individuality/ personality of the "cases" they tackle . To them the being on the op.table is same as an opened computer console is to a technician and Death would be just a breakdown of the functioning parts , a " black out", a short circuit. There is no philosophic attainment in this de-sensitised condition. Hangmen, Serial killers, Soldiers are all conditioned similarly.

The Voyage Beyond, Death as a pit stop, the Vaitharini River, Life Eternal are all matters of Faith. Perhaps such Faith is necessary equipment for people to find solace and strength to go on . Still, it is, at its best, just Pascal's Wager for the ordinary populace.

I have no quarrel with people who can genuinely believe in it and are Realised enough to treat it as a given . Sad to say, such enlightenment has eluded me so far.

I can and do mouth platitudes that i know, deep down, are not a conviction. Though I had joked recently in the FB to your delightful article about Mr. Yams and Mr. CG, i have to admit that I see Death as a Finality, the end of a person known and loved.
I cannot think of my Mother as a disembodied , undefined "Soul" soaring somewhere with kindred souls. My relationship with her is fundamentally visceral because I was in her, of her, from her, a part of her,an extension of her, hived off when the umbelicus snapped. To me ONLY a mother is a true Relation. And she has a particular face, a particular form. After her departure, I will hold on to that particular face and form in a photograph, for I know not what a Soul is. When she leaves, she leaves for good, i will not feel her presence, except, falsely, in my imagination .

I am unable to make myself live by the convictions of other people regarding a Soul's eternal life. That is why I fear her death and am terrified at the prospect of the irreparable loss. But since it is inevitable I just bite the bullet and continue to habituate myself to the idea, like those doctors and mortuary men , till my mind is dulled into insensate ossification . Unfortunately, so far , it hasn't.

I will definitely celebrate her life, but will equally definitely, drown in sorrow at her departure when it happens.

Now that the vision of " flames engulfing her hair and flesh" has shot out of your page and got seared in my mind, clawing ferociously into it frequently, I wish that i develop some belief in the hand-me-down philosophic theories regarding an everlasting Soul.

 

Sir, I am very grateful to you for showing me such patience . I feel very foolish because I am unable to express exactly what I feel and the words I type are coming out in a form that borders on the ridiculous.

Yes, people are dying every minute , some violently and before time too, but the world goes on . They call it resilience. Life perpetuates itself in unceasing waves and it makes no sense for us to keep singing the oppaari till kingdom come for the losses we suffer. True,true,true. Grief or fear is not going to make a whit of difference to natural laws. So, how cruel a fate it is that one should love a person to such an extent that the mere prospect of loss can drive one nuts !
Is the mind to be blamed for such attachment, such unbearable love ? My love for my mother is the oxygen i live by, how weird it feels to think that it also a noxious fume that is making me lose my balance !

.......Its ok, i guess one can make oneself strong enough to accept facts of life without flinching , with or without help from great seers. If Amputees can continue to live with their loss, I can too, amputated of my mother.

But this is another matter. I wish I had never read this post of yours, because of that single phrase : " flames engulfing her hair and flesh " ; it just freaked me out. I couldn't shake it off my mind even after logging out. I kept seeing it like a horrid vision, superimposed on my mother , sitting across the dining table that night. And the day after. And the day after. I'm totally spooked. can't take it.

Sorry to be such a pest. But thank you for bearing with me. I feel much better pouring it out to you . Anyone else ( in realtime ) would have given me a good shake and taken me to a shrink.

 

First of all, my condolences Sir, though I am many years late in offering them.

When that old rusted trolley
Moved in, carrying your body,
I wished I were going with you,
Am left with an eternal due.

The days when you fed me,
And the way you cherished me,
Are now things of the past,
Leaving me so aghast.

Who is now going to be
Playing with the little ones?
And who will address me
The way you did, oh! dear one?

The one who shaped me fine,
The one whose face did shine,
When I did something good,
Has just left me for good.

What will tears do?
My burden is so big.
If only it were you,
You will be first to hug.

I accept that death is
Inevitable so one day
I will be put at ease.
Till then, this pain will stay.

Sorry Cheeniya Sir. Just felt a bit emotional in this one. We may read so many books and hear so much about death. Accepting that happening to a dear one is always tougher. -rgs

 

Was browsing through your section, reading posts that caught my fancy and came upon this one. I dont think I have read such a poignant shraddhanjali to a mother , packing a lifetime's worth of emotions into such a short piece , ever. And written so soon after the transition too. what can I say, my dear friend, except that you are a favoured soul to have experienced such fulfilling love and that she was specially blessed to have had a son like you. It is too late to condole , but not too late to salute a son who celebrated and continues to celebrate his Mother's life with such devotion .

Feel like telling you about the death of a lady who became my mother after her transit. She was not my mother in blood, but in law. She lived with me under the same roof for two decades plus. I knew what food she liked, when her dentist appointment was due, who her friends were. But I never knew " her" . She was a very private and reserved person who spoke little, smiled less, and spent most of her spare time on her own, in pursuits that did not encourage participation. Reading, embroidering and later, Net browsing . Never was there any warmth between us, though there was no hostility as such. We did enjoy movies or dining out as a family , but there were always those curtains, gossamer barriers, between us. She lived her life, I lived mine. we lived with this arrangement that seemed an unchangeable fact of life. Like Islands.

Then, suddenly, she was gone. Close to two years now.

Her absence , I discovered with a startle , was not as unobtrusive as her presence had been. It was haunting. Because she began to take a shape totally unfamiliar to me with each nugget of memory presented to me by her friends and relatives during the days immediately after her demise. For instance, I was told she had loaned her entire savings to a poor relative once to meet an emergency . not a word of it had we heard. I discovered she had once confided in her friend that she would have loved to get a stylish haircut and don jeans, but was too bashful about what people at home might say ! My husband's mother ! ? Her cousin told me how she sat with his children once bursting bubble-wrap with glee. My Mother-in-law ?? ....There was more. So many inconsequential things like this , all adding up to a significant heft. She had done , said, read things I 'd never remotely associated with her. And who knows how many more beautiful nuances that made up her persona disappeared with her, undiscovered, lost forever.

That was when it dawned on me how blind , and uncaring about that blindness too, i had been. I had wasted 20 years just existing with her, never living and sharing. I only saw her cold detachment, but never the sensitivity she had behind it. A monumental lapse. The fact that she herself showed no interest in extending a hand towards me in no way mitigates the indefensibility of my lapse.

Not once had she ever uttered a hurtful word about my childlessness , though I had robbed her of the fundamental joy of grandmotherhood. Neither did she, a Masters in Chemistry with an eventful career in R&D( paints) , ever let drop a hint of disappointment that her IITian son had chosen to marry me , a college drop -out with a scrape-through school record. Never had she pitied herself for her fate of early widowhood. And never had I given a thought to how she might have coped with that searing loneliness. . The emotional pivot of her life, her only son , was my husband , but she had magnanimously respected the fine lines that separated relationships. All this and more, I had simply swept into the dusty bottom drawers labelled "detachment" and "reserve". When all the while, they were matchless treasures to be displayed with pride and honoured with gratitude........"Sujatha" had written a short story in which an ignorant girl chances upon an uncut diamond , but carelessly tosses it into a muddy pond , thinking its just a rude pebble........

Nothing can be reversed now. I will have to carry this cross quietly to the end of my days.
I had always called her "Atthai" . Now-a-days, I refer to her as Amma .

This may be a feedback irrelevent to your post. But it was healing to get it off my chest . As my friend, you will grant me that comfort I know. Thank you.

 

Dear Manju,

Reading your post here brought a lump to my throat! I just had to respond, sorry Cheeniya sir for intruding!

Manju, that's life I guess. When all is well and life goes on, we don't know what is lurking behind the nooks and corners. And death happens. All that was behind the facade will either come into the open or remains lost and forgotten forever. Depends on what the person has left for people to reminisce.

In your mother-in-law's case, she seems to have kept herself very private and has let you into only what she wanted to let you in. Even if you were not the best of friends, you didn't have any animosities either. And, even if there was, how can that matter Manju, you did your best under the circumstances.

With that, what I want to say to you is good that you wrote about what was burdening your heart. But please don't be too hard on yourself. I am glad she had a good life, her moments of fun and her privacy and her pride. She surely rests in peace.

You take heart!

L, Kamla