A Remembrance
Grief is a strange thing in today's world. This year has been a portrait of grief - from the singular to the universal, from the individual to the collective.
After getting the news about my grandmother's passing, I relistened to the podcast episode on grief by Brené Brown, recorded in the early days of COVID, before the protests that lit night skies in cities across America including my beloved Richmond, before the death toll mounted across the world, before I was forced to consider my own mortality as a "young person," mourning the death of someone close to my age.
The podcast speaks of six stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, and finding meaning.
With Mamma, for the moment, I feel firmly in denial. The distance between lived reality and facts come into play - I don't know if Schrodinger's cat applies here, but for as long as I'm not in India, not at the funeral, not deviating from the mundanity of my daily life, not seeing the physical chasm where an entire life existed, I can delude myself.
It's not fair - time should stand still, a montage of a life well-lived should air in the sky for all to see - there should be something.
That's the cruelty of this year's many cataclysms - so many of us have been unable to access the communities and rituals that keep us grounded and able to process the sheer scale of what's happening.
I've been repeating a numb refrain to people reaching out in the wake of her departure - some variant of the fact that she's 89, that we knew it was coming, that she lived a long and full life, that despite the pandemic, my dad could be with her. I think it's more to convince myself of the facts than anything else. In it, I missed the larger truth.
My four-year-old son didn't. He burst into tears when he heard about his great-grandmother's passing. He has a curious way of referring to everyone based on their relationship to others. So he always referred to her as "Your dad's mom". He asked how "your dad's dad" was. I gently told him my grandfather passed away a long time ago, that I never knew him. His eyes were fearful and tearful - "You mean Tatayya doesn't have his parents anymore?"
It's been three days and I still hear that question and the inadequacy I felt as I murmured hollow reassurances.
She lived a beautiful life. A hard one, no doubt, but one that calls for celebration, not regret. 89 years - older than the modern state of India. Her 5 children. A gumpu of us grandchildren that once assembled every summer, but are now scattered across the globe. Our partners and children. She played our childhood games, kept our rebellious teenage secrets, celebrated our graduations and weddings, and doted upon her great-grand children.
She had a very particular way of talking - facts strung together. She would tell me my grandfather told her she'd be journeying across the ocean - but not him. That she asked him where she'd go without him, and he insisted she would be traveling alone. Then she'd list the number of times she traveled - to Singapore when we lived there, and again to the US when we moved - all after his passing
She talked about being a school teacher, about taking her students to Kashmir on field trips, about her school girl antics against a mean teacher, about the frustration she felt as a young girl with a very orthodox mother (Madi Ammamma, another giant of a human being)
She'd tease me about my husband and tell me to teach him Telugu so that she could talk to him, since American English sounded nothing like British English.
She'd raid my favorite skirts and tops from my closet, analyze their pattern, and recreate them in fabric from Joann's and proceed to critique her own handiwork while I proudly modeled the new pieces and wore them with pride. She was planning a dress for her newest great-grandbaby, who she greeted over WhatsApp calls. My son ferries his toys around in a basket she wove and sneaks off to play with the doll swing she crafted when he thinks I won't notice.
Our dog Jedi was very protective of her. He'd sleep under her bed while she napped and would lick her to wake her up with military precision if she slept too long. Jipsy would also protect her, from us grandkids, as I resentfully recalled. If she was at her sewing machine, we weren't allowed within several feet of her if we wanted to keep our toes. I haven’t been able to shake the image of these two cantankerous, fluffy dogs and the others that’ve loved her over the years protectively accompanying her for her next journey.
As I write, memories are flowing - images flashing, her voice, the feel of her hand on mine.
She had a unique, individual relationship with each of us, and mine is just one of so many memories and experiences. One day, I'll be in a room with my cousins again - just as we were during summers growing up - and we'll share our own stories and memories.
I write this not to hold her back - she's lived a full life and as we tell each other, she wants us to live happy full lives - but because in lieu of the normal rituals and community, I find myself seeking a way to mark this moment, when I cannot hug my father or see her physical absence or go somewhere to pay my respects or do something. A Facebook post that's mixed in with peoples' Christmas pictures and political grievances, a blog post, comments and reactions - the modern MO of mourning.
I know all of us will always carry her within us, with her handiwork in our homes, her memories in our hearts, her extra long second toes on our feet. As I was trying to explain to my son, there may be a time when our loved ones no longer walk this earth, they never truly leave us.
"Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon as the end of the ocean." - David Searls
The photo was taken in August of 2008 - probably by me? - capturing a moment of calm during a flurry of excitement with my high school graduation and preparation for college move-in day, as well as the busy arrangements for one of my cousins’ wedding.
