Late yesterday evening as the closing credits rolled on screen after the movie ended, I was a sobbing blubbery mess. The lines were fuzzy between the body on the funeral pyre on TV and the one of Appa in my mind. That one image was enough to send me back three years in time to this day. As I convulsed into grief of losing my father all over again, it hit me that no matter how much time passes and how well I acknowledge his passing away, there will be moments when I will be a little girl feeling lost without her daddy.
I washed my face and soon was my regular self but my mind kept playing back the events of that evening from 2006. All of us crowding around appa’s bed, holding his hand as the monitor showed his life ebbing away. In those final moments the three of us formed a stoic picture as we lost the one person who meant the world to us. Over the next couple of weeks, the many rituals we threw ourselves in helped insulate us from processing the feelings of grief and loss. As the years passed, we eased from the smarting hurt to a dull pain renewing itself every anniversary.
So today as I walked down the stairs after waking, I walked straight up to Appa and took a few moments to honor his memory. To pay my homage to my father, mentor and hero. And then I called Amma knowing her day would have been many times painful than mine. It is in moments like these that I realize the worth of intangible things over the material. The silent bonds of pain that tie us together. In taking this day to remember all that we lost, I tell myself to cherish all that I hold dear. To remind amma how much I love her. To reach out and touch K’s hand as we walk to our respective offices. To stop by my bro’s cube to see if he is in. To tell myself to call my sis on my way home.
To mark my life by the lives I have touched rather than counting the years I have lived.
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