I called my
aunt yesterday.
It isn’t easy
to call someone who has recently lost a loved one.
I didn’t know
what to say and no words came.
“Hello” she
answered. Her voice was clear – no trace of any heavy deep-throated
sadness.
“Hello Aunty,
it’s me – Aashoo” I said simply.
“Aashoo! How
are you?” She enquired about my family’s health and asked what my little
daughter was doing.
“We are all
ok. How are you?” I asked.
“I am ok now.
You see, it happened too soon. I wished your uncle had waited for a couple of
days.”
Then she
told me: how they took him to the hospital, how he passed away peacefully, how
there were three priests at the funeral, how he read the Bible daily, how the
priests said that he had influenced them, how he prayed, and how he lived. Her
words rushed out like a burst of tears.
I listened
quietly.
“I can go on
talking for a long time. You must not feel sad about this. Your uncle has a better
life now. We must rejoice” she said. Her faith was strong and it gave her the
grace to accept her loss.
“I remember
the good times" I said
trying to refresh her memory. I told her how we had teased him about his obsession with the Bible when
we visited him a few months back, and how he had made our favourite traditional
sweet ‘mumbra’ on the fire stove in the backyard a few years ago.
“Oh yes” she
said as her voice trembled a little. “The good times – there were so many.”
They had
been married for over half a century. She said he had never hurt her with harsh
words. Rather it was she who had nagged him about being obsessed with prayers
all the time. He underwent chemotherapy once and then refused any invasive
treatments as he put his life in the hands of god. “Six months” said the
doctors. However, he lived on for six years.
“He prayed
for all of you” she said.
I knew she
was wiping her eyes with the ends of her sari pallu as she spoke.
