the next time I see you

I guess I'm at that stage where I'm telling random people that my mom died.  As I was checking in my luggage at the airport, the desk attendant asked why my suitcase was so heavy and I told her it had my mom's saris. Then I started sobbing. And then to make it less awkward, I explained that my mom had passed away. Super awkward. This young person, who couldn't have been more than 25, touched my arm and said gently: "It might seem like she's not here anymore, but she's always with you. So I helpfully cried harder.

I saw the same attendant at the gate too, and when she came up to me, I bashfully said something like--hi, look I'm not crying anymore. And she said "Ma'am, the next time I see you, you'll be strong and happy." I was so moved by her goodwill, I asked for her name, thinking I would write a note commending her kindness. 

It was Lakshmi. Mom's name. 

________

Pic: My mom's favorite sibling, her only brother, gave me this life-size blonde, blue-eyed doll who shut her eyes when you laid her down when I was a baby. I didn't play with her much, but "Sofia" became quite famous amongst my friends... for instance, the kid who's in the first photo with me wanted to take a photo with Sofia. My dad thought it would be hilarious to use my sister in the next picture as a switcheroo.

Another one from mom's archive.

I guess she doesn't live here anymore

The morning's Hindu ceremony for this 16th day was very serious. I was terrified of messing up something small like tying a knot wrong in the darba grass or making an offering in the wrong cardinal direction and endangering my mom's welfare in the next realm. So I extra loved the part when my mom was entrusted to her mom and grandmother for the journey, with the priest calling out their formal names and clan names.

This afternoon was the celebration of her life. It was a party mom would have loved, except for the fact that she very certainly wasn't there. If she doesn't live here anymore, I wonder where she is. And also, although I was the one who came up with the idea of "celebrating her life" I ended up being a very wet blanket--the kind who cries all the time.

It was the first time I was seeing people outside of family, and every time someone said something kind or I spied a sweet picture of her face on the slideshow, I was a puddle. At one point I was clutching neighbors I hadn't seen decades and sobbing into their shoulder. (They meant to visit dad on Wednesday, but had hurried down to say goodbye to me as I leave at the end of the day and they didn't want to miss me. So although their words were fairly standard--"we all lost a good friend"-- it seemed so fucking poignant in the moment.)

My mom's cousin with whom she had a lot of adventures made me laugh when she said an old (male) colleague of my sister's was a "rugged beauty." We got a lot of mileage out of that for the rest of the afternoon. Another cousin was addressed by a completely different--and made up--name by the security guard, and we all used that name for her for the rest of the afternoon as well. I guess, we all needed to regress/recoup a bit. 

Pic: A picture of the celebration a friend shared with me.
 

It's a serious business

Chelli and I spent hours poring over the many options we could go with as Amma had a serious sweet tooth and we went with a little bit of everything. It's a serious business gathering all of Amma's favorite treats.

We finalized the slide show, signed off on the caterer menus for tomorrow, okayed the centerpieces from the florist, and found the perfect photos for the seven small tables. Mom would love this party. The person who made tiny cakes for tomorrow started crying when she delivered them this evening because she said she was looking forward to making mom's 80th birthday cake and instead she was "baking for this." 

Pic: This looks like an ad for globalization what with the homemade treats up front and everything from Coca Cola to CheezIts and fusion snacks at the tail end of the table.   
 

siblings

So grateful for my sister who is so amazing at caregiving. When not with me, our parents have been with her for at least the last 15 years.

Amma has four siblings, and although she'd always say she loved her only brother the most, she's super close to her sisters. It has been such a relief to be held by my aunts, to know I'll fall asleep next to a protective and comforting aunt tonight. 

She was telling me that she and Amma had been arguing about a T.V. series called The Promise. They couldn't seem to agree on whether the lead actor was handsome or not, if he was tall or not, if someone was sus or not, they couldn't even agree on the basic plot line... "I kept rewatching episodes because I couldn't remember anything she mentioned," my aunt said. It turned out that my mom had been watching the Turkish series called The Promise and my aunt had been watching a Korean series that had the same title (but was a completely different show). Ha.

Pic: I vaguely remember being posed at the end of a school day with my sister in those giant planters as *growing kids* by my uncle, who doted on us. (Also, apropos of nothing, at least three of my teachers back then were flirting with him.) I have no idea why our catholic school uniforms are so grimy--my sister may even have been in a fight? She must still be in kindergarten, because their uniforms were sleeveless and you got sleeves only when you got to first grade. It was a cute 'fit: cement green with contrast binding in a green-and-white check... I'd wear that mod-looking frock now, given a chance. And I'd happily go back to that childhood.

found

Of course my sister and I started crying even as we walked towards each other and collapsed into each other when she picked me up at the bus stop.*

When we got home, my dad seemed so much smaller inside my hug and also grizzlier--in the traditional way, he won't shave until Sunday's ceremony.  He wouldn't let my hand go for hours. 

He wants me to take all my mom's things as some jewelry like her bangles, rings, anklets will fit only me. Ditto her shoes. Her clothes are not my size, but he kept telling me the sweaters and blazers would look nice at work (umm, no). I can see I'm going to return with so many of her saris. 

The true treasures are all the photo albums. She was so obsessed with At, photographing nearly every moment of At's infancy with whatever blurry camera she had back in 1999.

Pic: I found this 56-year-old photo of my parents from when they were just married. I'm noticing the slight lean away in their heads. In my dad's case, it could be because of the way his body aligns because of his polio... my mom is probably feeling shy? In any case, this photo makes me smile because dad always joked about how there was so much symmetry between his tie and my mom's braid.

*[My flight got into Bangalore at 3:20 AM, and I didn't want Chelli to make the 90-minute trip to the airport so late at night, so I refused to tell her when my flight got in. I stayed inside the airport until it was no longer dark and then took the bus home (it seemed safer than a taxi--there are always such horrendous stories of violence against women in Bangalore).]

goodbye and all that

I apologized to A when he dropped me off at the airport, because I feel I've said the same three or four things a hundred different ways this past week and he said so what, he has comforted me in the same three or four different ways too... fair enough.

My plane's here, and kinda don't want to leave the airport because going will make everything real. I'm crying discreetly and I think it might help if I talk to someone, but also feel like I might descend into full-on weeping if hear a kind voice.

Pic: The photo i took to say goodbye to the fam on chat. 

On my way to work today, I heard Robert Redford died

... and it made me smile 

He had been one of my mom's celebrity crushes and what if there was some party for the newly dead where she might finally meet him? I don't know how many times we watched Redford and Fonda in the film adaptation of Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park...

I leave tomorrow for Bangalore, and I guess I have mortality on the brain, because I've been saying earnest goodbyes to everyone letting them know how much they mean to me... TBF, it is a long journey and lots of things could go wrong... and I've thought of at least 500 of them.

Pic: I miss her everywhere, even on FB, where she was sometimes quite prolific on my page.

travel countdown math

I've booked my tickets for Bangalore...

I leave on Wednesday and am back early on Tuesday, or 

4         days of travel 

3         days I'll have in Bangalore 

2         nights I'll spend in Bangalore 

1         teaching day I'll miss 

0         pleasure 

still present

I'm still using the present tense when I talk about mom a lot of the time, and I guess that's ok. Every time I receive a condolence message, I go through a moment where I'm like--LOL, no! my mom's not dead... before I realize no, that message really is for me. 

They say a loved one's spirit is near when a cardinal appears... I've been woken up by a cardinal almost every day since Amma died...

Could it be because when A is at work, I've been sleeping downstairs with Max and Huck?

Mostly... no regrets

I wasn't always the best kid. 

I broke her heart when I tried to die. And during my teen anorexic years, I wielded a sort of malicious power over her at mealtimes. But both those things were over a period of 3-4 late teen years and outside of that--to her, I seemed the best kid. 

Every thing about me--my grades, my stories, my smiles, my book recs, my kids, my home, every award, every publication, every tiny hair tweak, every plant hack... every stupid thing brought her so much joy... as she never tired of telling me.

I'm glad we went for a long visit recently, and that we got to see her this summer, I'm glad I got to take her to all the places she wanted to go to, made her fabulous meals and very simple ones (the last thing I made her was the Parsi omelette sandwich we ate picnic style at the Detroit airport), made sure the kids cleared their calendars and spent enough time with us, did the professional family photo shoot she wanted, sang all the songs she wanted me to sing to her, took her shopping at all the discount places she loved.

I let all the small things go. Her main parenting rule was that she would love me no matter what. And in the last twenty years, that became my reciprocal rule as well. I stopped trying to convince her about things that were important to me... she had her own list of things that were important to her (mostly At, Nu, my sister, and me). And things got real easy after that. So... despite the pain, at least there's peace in knowing I don't wish I had done anything differently. 

The day before*, she wished me for my Boss Day, then we talked for a bit. Our last words were: 

"Love you, Kanna" 

"Love you, Amma"

No... No regrets... If I had known those were to be our final words, I would not have changed them.

But I would have changed the time. My grandmother and great-grandmother lived into their nineties and I expected my mom would too...

Pic: I recognize my lovely mom. The gremlin in her lap is supposedly me. 

* It was the 6th in Bangalore, but it was still the 5th when I got the call. I keep replaying the words I heard my sister say through her sobs ("Akka, Amma passed away this morning") in my head as if they'll make sense this time.

tribute

India won independence from Britain in 1947. Or according to tongue-in-cheek family lore, my mother was so powerful that the year after she was born, the British left India. Our dad was sincere in calling her our family's Dhairya Lakshmi--our Goddess of Courage. I can't believe my vibrant, beautiful, lovely, funny mother is not in this realm any longer. I feel enveloped in her presence and love still.

I can't put into words how amazing she was or how hard she loved me and my sister. When other Indian kids bemoan their strict upbringing, I'm extra grateful for Amma who diligently used the copy of Dr. Benjamin Spock she acquired in college; her two primary parenting rules for my sister and me were 1) Love your kids no matter what 2) Say yes more than you say no. As the eldest in a family of five she received extra corporal punishment from her father: "if the first wheel is straight, all the other wheels will follow." So she was determined that she would never lay a finger on her kids--that was one of the many generational cycles she successfully broke.

As a child she was hilariously blunt (to her grieving mother--"mom, don't cry! All your powder [make up] is getting washed away") + a terrible liar (after being told not to tell her grandfather they'd been to the cinema "Thatha, we didn't AT ALL go to the cinema"). And she continued on with those traits. She loved so fiercely and was unfailingly proud of us. It's no wonder she was adored by her two kids and grandkids, her four siblings, her niblings, and several of her kids' friends. Also, she loved her only brother extra and didn't care who knew that. I love that she and Aaron were each other's favorites. He was even better than I was at deciphering her 2:00 am texts--typos, Telugu colloquialisms and all. And she blissfully took my dad for granted. "Even if God himself came down to tell me, I'd never believe your dad could have an affair," she told me once. And just as I was awed by the trust that seemed to exist between my parents, she added: "He really hates to spend money." That still cracks me up.

She was irrepressible and fun-loving. And that line in _Bend it Like Beckham_ "Don't smile, Indian brides never smile" didn't apply to her; look how radiant she is in that B&W picture as a bride. She loved people and parties and travel. The week before Spring break this year, she texted me around 2:30 am to suggest she, my sister, and I should go to Istanbul. We could share a suite, her treat! We didn't do that, but two months ago, when she was here, we threw a huge garden party together, and she adored book clubs so we went to one at Jan Shoemaker's, and we got in lots of cuddles with Atulya and NuNu who were even more precious to her than her kids ("the interest is more precious than the principal" she'd say.)

Today a cardinal at the window woke me up. This is wonderful as they say cardinals are a sign of a loved one's spirit. But also, I have a feeder at that window and also I didn't have to wait to feel my mom's presence. It is always with me. I can't stop loving her and Amma won't stop loving us. I will always love her; she will love us forever. Om Shanti, Shanti, Shantihi.