Today’s Mood Ingredients: Furious, Crushed, Lost, Searching, Faithless.

I’ve been trying to write this post for 6 days now. And every time I attempt to start, I want to throw up or drink a few beers instead. We’ve all had unfair things happen to us in life. They are all hugely wrong & dramatic to us at the time, but if I think about all of those now, they pale in comparison. G-d knows why I have to reiterate this so soon, but..I don’t process grief. I don’t know if it’s become a learned behavior or if my brain just tries to protect me from the full impact of certain things, but at the end of the day, the result is the same. Avoidance. I’m a hyper-empath with an aversion to expression unless through dance or the written word. My thoughts and emotions bubble and churn inside of me until one day they erupt so violently, that I’m left paralyzed in my own aftermath. Anyway, this is another letter. I wrote one to my grandma after she passed as a form of catharsis (that didn’t entirely work) & now, in order to attempt to live a functional life as he would’ve wanted (& would yell at me if I didn’t), I have to write one to my uncle. It’s meant as an unloading for me and to help my family deal..whomsoever it actually helps..I don’t even know if it’ll help me.

One thing to know about me if you nothing about me at all; my family is my entire being. If one of them leaves, a part of me does too. At this point, I’m just a fragmented soul that’s completely terrified of how much more self-shattering is in my future.

Dear Markand Mama,

I don’t know where to begin because you’re still supposed to be here sending me your weekly Thursday Sai Baba WhatsApp images. I’m supposed to get a message in our “Boarding and Lodging” group that only has the three of us – me, you, & Urmi Aunty – every Wednesday night EST. I waited this week, but you didn’t send one..so I sent one to Urmi Aunty instead. Her birthday was today, by the way. Not that I have to remind you..I hope you were with her. I can’t bear to see that there is no read receipt from you from April 16th when I told you you’d be laughing at us and our concern within a week..& now there never will be a double blue check and there will never be that mischievous laugh and currently it feels like there will never be happiness.

There’s no way for me to process this loss in a healthy way. Ba was 94 years old, I knew it was coming, but that didn’t change what happened to my heart when it actually did. You were 73. That’s like being a teenager nowadays. A man who had no major health concerns in over seven decades recovered from a sextuple bypass in January and an open abdominal surgery in April; all within the first four months of 2018. You were ready for a regular room 2 days post-op from the last one. Urmi Aunty had your Girnar Chai ready for that room..& it now sits in our kitchen in New York for a purpose I have yet to discern.

My mind constantly rewinds to August 28, 2017. You here with us, the first time in my entire life I’d seen you cry. It was the middle of the night & we had to get the call about Ba. I went through the motions, I even went to work that morning. Nothing affected me because my brain went into savior mode..until the moment when mom started the Ganesh aarti during what is now the worst Chaturthi of my life. And then the explosion. Sobs of sheer excruciation & a physical squeezing of my heart not able to accept the fact that I would never see my Miss Universe again. Ever. And that what made me crumble the most were her last words to me when I left her room that January were, “Jaooj padse? (“You really have to go?”). They still echo. And as people watched and waited and tried to help, including mom, you came to me and enveloped me in a strong loving vice of consolation. Your mother had passed away while you were gone and you were stroking my hair and willing your own strength unto me through your own wrenching grief. Who the hell does that? No one but you could have. But who’s here to console me now? We are all lost in our own questions and indignation and disbelief. It’s like you’re the thread of an old favorite sweater that has been pulled, and now we are all just unraveling.

I’m positive that was the beginning of the end for you. The only one of seven children who lived with his mother his entire life..and during the one of very few times you ventured out was when she decided to leave us. Heartbreak can end us all, even the most formidable of people. It knows no prejudice. It has been scientifically proven (since I know you’d definitely ask for proof). But as your heart ached to a level hardly ever felt, did you think of us? Of the ones who still needed you around? Of the ones who relied on your wisdom and guidance? Of the ones who are now ghost shells struggling to find reason and to reach in and hopefully discover a will like yours..?

I already had planned not to come to Bombay again until I could manage to see Ba’s empty room without falling apart. You made it happen more quickly than it was supposed to & in a more traumatic way than I ever thought possible. We left to come there, overnight, and you even gave us time to process and come to terms with what was to be. You didn’t leave after your heart stopped four times, you stayed. Part of you stayed to let us know that this was what we would have to accept. The other part I believe stayed until you were brought to your own home that you worked so hard to build for your family.

We watched you for weeks in the ICU; stroked your hair, told you it was okay to go even while we secretly all held the slightest glimmer of hope with every involuntary movement your body made..and yet we made sure to convince each other that there was actually no hope at all. Even in those moments of unconsciousness, you had us all trying to protect each other from the devastation that was about to follow. We came back to New York and you were brought back home once and for all. I spoke to Kanchi for a half hour on May 1st. We were discussing anything and everything, including the inevitable, and both of us were trying to keep the other upright without even realizing it – as we usually do. She called me back ten minutes later and it was done. You waited. You waited to come home, you waited to be in your mother’s room, you waited to be where her own soul had taken flight, you waited for the family to surround you, more for them than for yourself. Even then..as your soul was departing, you looked out for everyone else.

But now all we have are empty rooms that are haunted by the fullness of your spirits. The traditional photos hang on those walls, faded pictures of brilliantly colored souls, caught in a single moment of your illustrious lives..and taunt us as if a fresh, alive floral garland is supposed to soften the blow of what I consider plain and simple theft.

You were a man with a strength & resolve greater than any human I’d ever met, except for Ba, but I guess genetics is really powerful after all. How do you survive four cardiac arrests in a matter of 40 minutes? How does your entire body recover, with the exception of your prized organ, your brain? How does this happen to the most faithful-to-a-fault man in the world? The man who held Sai Baba above everyone and everything else. The man who made trips to Shirdi as if he was just traveling next door, not on a six-hour journey, one way. The man who did more pro bono work than deemed “normal” by a man of your stature. The man whose moral compass was true North his entire life, and whose needle we all used for our own personal guidance. The son, the husband, the father, the younger brother, the older brother, the nephew, the uncle. The answer-man, the example of hard work and harder earned success. Humility, steadfastness, and an impeccable comedic timing. A child’s soul – honesty, purity, and mischievousness in a man’s body. You were already up on a pedestal that most only attempted to level up to..now you’re on one that’s impossible to reach. If they took a good man like you, what chance do the rest of us have to live a life that means something? The answers will never come, and that’s what’s terrorizing our minds the most. Now all we have is a deep crisis of faith. The faith you had in your Sai Baba seems to be the same faith that many of us have lost in the saint that was supposed to be the “kind healer.” My Thursdays are no longer for Him, they will always be for You. My prayers are no longer to Him, they are to You.

Monkey Mama (my name for you ever since I was young enough to understand your playfulness), you brought me into your home for over a year and, as always, treated me more like your daughter than your niece. You may not have agreed with my life choices, but you respected my right to make those choices – under your roof, at that. I can see you standing by the balcony door reciting Baba’s name at night in your “bundi” & pyjama. I can hear you giggling at silly things that usually only you thought were funny. I can make out the outline of you sitting in “your seat” on a Sunday reading the paper & watching cricket or the news. I can feel the happiness of us all sharing a Muchhad sweet pan at the dining table at night.

These are images burned so far into into my psyche and I’m so afraid I’ll always have to live with your ghost, but not be able to feel your spirit. I’m afraid to say that I miss you because that means that you’re really gone. I’m afraid to feel the absence. The pit. The black hole you’ve left behind. All of us you’ve left behind. A grandchild on the way you’ll never see, my husband you (or Ba) will never get to disapprove of, a walk down the aisle to lead me to my mandap you’ll never take (my heart literally feels like it’s cracking at the thought of this), my successes I’ll never be able to share with you, my worth I’ll never be able to prove to you. The future generations who will never know the impact of your life, just the impact of your afterlife. There is zero amount of justice in this, which is so ironic considering your profession.

I don’t give a shit about most elders’ opinions of me aside from my parents and godparents. I expect those that are closest to me to know me as I am, but I still strive for their pride (not to be confused with approval). I’ve always strived to make you proud and now it’s too late to show you all that I can do. This adds the layer of “should I just have finished medical school to keep everyone happy,” “should I have just picked someone and gotten married so everyone could have the peace of mind that I’m ‘settled,'” “should I have popped out some kids so I’m not a complete failure in the eyes of my dearests”? All I can do is live with the unanswered hope that I was not a disappointment to you and that you understood my heart. I took for granted that I had time to prove myself.

Monkey Mama, you spent your whole life holding our hands; holding mom’s hands, holding Subhash Mama & Mahesh Mama’s hands, holding Tanvi, Kanchi, & Sahil’s hands, holding Urmi Aunty’s hands..reassuring us that in the end, it would all be okay. That life would be okay. That our struggles would be okay. That love would be okay. That heartbreak would be okay. That loss would be okay. On May 1st, 2018, they held your hands. They told you it was okay. They said they would be okay. They felt you let go in peace, knowing that you left your family with your strength, your determination, your iron will, your compassion, your morality, your humor, your intelligence, your love.

In the end, it all came full circle. But to be honest, I’ve always liked other shapes better.

I love you. I never got to say it as an adult when you could actually hear me, but I know now that you always knew it. We could never have maintained our strong relationship 10,000 miles apart if you didn’t. Come visit me once in a while so I don’t completely lose my mind (which you would be so pissed at anyway). Ba already does, you might as well come together. Just leave before morning so I’m not in tears all day.

Be our guiding light. It’s a demand, not a request. Sai Baba owes us.

Love Boundlessly & Unconditionally,
Siddhi

 

Today’s Wisdoms:

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world & me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another & not to me.” -C.S. Lewis

“I did not fast. First of all, to please my father who had forbidden me to do so. And then, there was no longer any reason for me to fast. I no longer accepted God’s silence. As I swallowed my ration of soup, I turned that act into a symbol of rebellion, or protest against Him.” -Night by Elie Wiesel

“He had watched me one day as I prayed at dusk. “Why do you cry when you pray?” he asked, as though he knew me well. “I don’t know,” I answered, troubled. I had never asked myself that question. I cried because because something inside me felt the need to cry. That was all I knew. “Why do you pray?” he asked after a moment. Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe? “I don’t know,” I told him, even more troubled and ill at ease. “I don’t know.” –Night by Elie Wiesel

“Let me be empty and weightless, and maybe I’ll find some peace tonight.”-Sarah McLachlan

Today’s Interlude: