He passed away some days ago. Sharing some thoughts that have been playing in my mind since then ..
Was in no mood to write on this. But then I came across this tweet by @RajeevRC_X Sir and thought of giving it a shot :
The first line in the tweet by @RajeevRC_X Sir quoted above resonates with what someone told me after my own Dad’s passing. I’ll paraphrase it :
‘Jab tak baap zinda hota hai, tab tak aadmi upar uski chhaaya hoti hai. Iska pata tab chalta hai jab wo nahi rehte’
Needless to say, it hit with a brutal force when it happened. You yourself may be 50+ years old, but the loss of your father is something you can never be prepared for, as I realized that day.
When I became a father for the first time, I realized my relationship with my own father underwent a sea-change as it dawned upon me what being a father meant.
The next time that relationship changed was sadly, when he passed away.
We knew he didn’t have much time left, having been in and out of hospital since his surgery two years ago, with the last 3-4 months being exceptionally difficult. Even though it wasn’t said out loud, yet that thing was always at the back of our minds. He himself too was aware of it. In fact he had, in his own way, started to tell us what he wanted done after his passing.
Yet, as I said before, when the call finally came from the ICU where he had been admitted for nearly one month, we rushed there with a sense of foreboding. It was the same trip as we had been making twice a day, in order to be with him during the morning and evening ICU visiting hours. Yet, that morning, the drive seemed to be much different from previous days.
No one was willing to acknowledge what we all sensed.
Of course, it ended the moment we reached the hospital and rushed to the ICU. It was about 45 minutes before normal visiting hours, yet they were waiting for us. The ICU staff were extremely professional and understanding as they informed us of his time of passing and then they just let us be there with his mortal remains. That day there were a total of five of us, including my elder son who had been his de-facto minder for the past two years since I and my siblings all live in different towns.
How I myself was able to be there that day is a different story altogether.
Anyhow, my Mom and I were there in the ICU while the others waited outside, since only two people were permitted during visiting hours and that too one at a time. This day, however, the ICU staff gently said that we may call the others also to see him if we wanted. So I called up my elder one and told him to come up with the others.
The first time that my voice broke was when I told him that his Dadu was no more.
Even though in his 20s, he is still a kid, atleast in the way I see him. Yet, he himself had matured immensely over the past months. From getting upset at seeing so much suffering in Oncology wards as he accompanied his Dadu for his radiation/ chemo/ consultancy sessions, he had grown to accept it, partly also because he was the only one staying with his grandparents.
Being part of the first generation of Indians that made their careers away from their birthplace, does have a LOT of drawbacks, especially when it comes to looking after parents in their old age.
Thankfully, my elder one had stepped up.
He deserved to spend some last moments with his Dadu in the same ICU where he had brought him in the middle of the night at about 3:00 am, about a month back.
Meanwhile, the Missus and the younger one were already onboard a flight since early that morning. They were in a transit halt at Secunderabad when my wife saw the message I had sent to her. The younger one too saw it as her phone powered up upon landing. In his late teens, this was his second experience of death of a loved one, having lost his Nanu during COVID. He spent bulk of the transit halt crying.
Back home, that was what my Mom was doing as well.
Meanwhile, I got busy with the paperwork and other formalities. Soon a few more relatives from nearby came over. The plan was to keep the mortal remains in the mortuary till such time my brother also reached. My Mom and elder one were sent downstairs to the cafe along with the others, while I got around to getting the paperwork done. We were told that the mortal remains would be sent to the mortuary after the ICU visiting time was over, in order to not upset visitors of other patients.
It made sense.
However, it also gave some bits of time where I was alone in the counselling room. This was when I realized one thing : One is just not conditioned to cry, either in public or even privately.
Of course, there were times when one just couldn’t hold back the tears.
In such times, one would seek a quiet corner of the counselling room to let out a few quick tears and even sobs, before putting on the act of getting busy with the paperwork. Yet, so many memories kept coming back, along with tears. He had truly lived his life king-size. Mind you, I don’t say this because he was my father, but because I saw him live his life on his own terms. Here’s just one example!
This one from the thread quoted in the very first sentence of the story too deserves a separate mention here:
But as the word of his passing went around, there were so many people that reached out.
So many whose lives he had touched.
So many stories were told that we had absolutely no idea of.
And such a huge void that were were only just getting to realize.
Of course, a message was sent out that evening to all our contacts & his contacts as well from his own mobile, regarding his death and time and place for last rites. Upon seeing it, two of his erstwhile colleagues travelled nearly 45 km and landed up at the house that very night. One of them had risen to the very zenith in his organisation. But he still remembered his first few days as a young 19-year old employee learning the ropes under the guidance of my father.
Yet more stories were told that night over dinner.
On that note, one more realization that dawned on me that day was that occasions of grief get more people together, than occasions of joy.
I say the above without being judgmental. I say it merely as an observation that I realized in the aftermath. Needless to say, we were extremely grateful for all those who made it a point to be there with the family in this time of grief. Thank God for the extended families and friends and neighbours and everyone else in our society who make it a point to know connect and stay connected.
This was as much a repeat of the time when my Father-in-Law had passed away during COVID times, five years ago. At that time too, a lot of empathy and kindness was received.
This is a recollection of those days in April 2021 👇
Moving on to the day we took the mortal remains for the last rites. All of us siblings were back home together with our better halves and kids after a really long time. Of course, it took a tragedy to get us all back together under the same roof after such a long time.
Rest of the kids being quite young, I made it a point to atleast include both my boys in all aspects of the last rites.
This was done for two reasons.
Firstly, to ensure that they get to bid farewell to their Dadu in their own way. He had spoilt them silly with his love. (Of course, that also included the elder one from getting a dose of some well-deserved ‘tough’ love on one occasion when he was about 7 or 8 years old!)
The second reason for including them was so that they would know what I myself would expect whenever my own time came.
As we gave him his final bath, both my sons joined in too.
At about that time, I remembered that my very first memory of my Dad was from when I was about 4 years old and admitted in a hospital for appendicitis. I remember him asking the doctor if he could take me out to buy me a toy.
I had bought a small piano that day.
It would have been a costly buy for him, given his salary of those days.
And now my last memory of him being alive too was in a hospital. Though this time, he wasn’t talking .. or even conscious. Thank God for video calls wherein I had been able to convey to him the much awaited news of a long-pending promotion. Small mercy that it came before he died.
Last bath & associated rituals done, off we went to the cremation ground. It was during the cremation that the tears came back again. And this time, these were unbridled tears. I didn’t realize it at that time, till my wife told me later that evening.
Frankly, I wasn’t surprised.
The kids too were standing right next to me and my brother during the cremation as we consigned him to the eternal flame, along with prayers. They too cried their hearts out.
Thank God that they aren’t ‘mature’ enough to understand that our society conditions men to NOT cry.
Cremation done, the next step was a paath in the local gurudwara. Once again, the extended family stepped up to help with the arrangements. Life was already moving on .. till such time during the keertan after the ‘bhog’ of the paath, when the Raagis sang this couplet.
A very rough translation is : ‘Pray for me that I become one with my Prabhu’
My eyes filled up once again upon hearing this one.
I thought I was doing a good job of controlling my tears.
But I was wrong.
I was caught by surprise when I felt a tear run down my face ..
And then it was as if the dam of tears had broken.
Sitting in a sea of mourners, I was crying unabashedly.
And then I felt someone hold my hand from behind me. It was a classmate from school who had landed up in the gurudwara. Incidentally he too had lost his own father a few months ago.
Then came a second hand .. this time of my younger one. He had never seen me cry before. And here he was, consoling me in the middle of immense personal grief.
Thankfully, the tears subsided and we moved on for the langar where we met yet more folks who had made it a point to navigate the Delhi traffic and be there.
Soon thereafter, however, the crowds at home thinned out. As they say, life goes on. We too got busy with the bureaucratic requirements of getting various documents in place in order to ensure minimal hassles to my Mom. In the middle of this all, his photo on the wall would often draw attention to itself. He would be staring back at us.
In fact, he still is looking at me as I type out this blog post.
I am sure he would be happy to see that I picked up his favourite wrist-watch before I left home!
I think it is time to wind up this chain of thoughts.
In fact, I have no idea why I wrote it, except for the nudge by the tweet of @RajeevRC_X Sir from some days ago, as also this story by @w_karve Sir that I saw yesterday:
Bottomline : The cycle of life and death continues unabated, as it has done for millennia.
Unless he finds ‘Mukti’, he shall come back again, perhaps as my grandson. In fact, his passing away resulted in a talk about life and death with the elder one. The younger one had gone back home by the time I had this talk with his elder brother.
When the immediate grief is gone, he will be remembered not for the suffering he went through during his last days, but for the decades and decades worth of life that he lived before that.
Here is one example from not too long ago!
He loved his life. He lived it in a way that causes awe and even envy amongst those who knew him intimately.
And he was prepared for his death too.
I guess this is how he shall be remembered.
In case you have read this far, thank you for your patience. All that I will say in the end is to spend as much time as you can with your loved ones. Especially parents who are getting old. Theirs is a void that simply cannot be fulfilled. Thanks for sparing your time to go thru this long monologue 🙏
Oh, and I will also leave this tweet here in this thread. This was one of his favourite sayings, which I realize, is nothing short of an absolute truth!
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