The Un-realness of it all

In the very week that we lost Uncle, I read an essay on loss, and the writer asked a question very pertinent to death: we know what happens to a body after death; how do we deal with what happens to the consciousness housed in that body? Reminds me of a real-life account of an Australian woman who lost her brother and nephew in a road-accident. The woman’s own young son was playmate and thick friends with her young nephew and kept asking his mother when he could play with cousin Garry, to which the mother sensibly replied ( even though the concept of death was beyond the child’s comprehension), that he could not, as cousin Garry was dead. Her son finally asked the question all of us would like to ask, but do not, because we know better: “ Mum, can I play with cousin Garry when he has finished being dead?” I know I will ask this question the next time I come to India and see all that defined Uncle Kulwant and find him not.

I know I will ask this question because I have asked it once already. It was the day after Daddy’s Bhog fourteen years ago, and my mind was going back over the past few days, which, like Holly’s now, were a bit of a blur (more so, as unlike him, I neither saw my father dead nor said the last goodbyes); and suddenly a thought slipped out unconsciously: Daddy, we have finished with cremating you, and having your Bhog, its time now to get on with the business of living!!! That, for me, was the moment of truth: when the shock hit me, that the business of living was truly over for him. Even then, the mind continued to play games: a few days later we recalled an earlier occasion , when my grandma had complained to my mother that she celebrated only her children’s birthdays, not her husband’s, so Mum asked for Daddy’s date of birth, and that being a lunar date, much calculating was done and the date arrived at. So we set about celebrating Daddy’s Birthday: I baked a lovely Black Forest cake, and we had a family celebration (later calculations revealed it was Daddy’s 50^th!), and Papaji, my maternal Grandfather, even gave Daddy some shagan!!! I insisted that happened in 1984, while Sonu said it was in 1986. In the end, I said what children say when they get into an argument: let’s ask Daddy!!! And once again, I crumpled when I realised I could not. Not nay more

Over the years, I have found that the anatomy of grief has many layers and time only peels them one by one. The first layer is one of incredulity and shock: this can not be happening to me. Then comes sorrow, deep and wrenching: this has happened to me and I have to bear the loss. Finally there is the resignation and the realisation: I have to live the loss. It is this ironic fact of living the loss, living with the death of someone close, and continuing to live that loss as long as one lives, that is the hardest. It would be wrong to say that the pain goes away, it never does, what changes is our perception of it, and how we deal with it. And that is something each one of us has to find for ourselves.