As it happened coincidentally my father passed away the day I turned 50. For someone whose faculty to remember dates and events is not a strong suit, a relative commented that he had made it easy for me to remember the date.
Perhaps it would be so.
He lived his life on his terms and left the living world relatively pain free.
An India trip therefore came about. I visited whole host of relatives in short order.. some I had not encountered in a few decades. A life and death tipping point has the ability to bring people together and it did. It gave me a chance to connect with people outside of mere relatives including folks that reside in my neighborhood where I grew up in Bombay and were the actual first responders helping my now widowed mother cope with grief and shock of a companion of many years leaving.
Some had also helped her get him hospitalized when few days before he needed to. I was able to personally visit with and thank these souls whose presence made my mother’s predicament bearable. No matter the blood line or your social standing the immediate relief in such situations is a being who amazingly steps up to do what is needed right then. To all of those beings my hats off.
India as a place is ever changing and as someone who as of date has spent more time living in America than in India, I found it hard to operate in. I was thrust into a world of logistics to help my mom manage her banking and other rudimentary chores that she didn’t necessarily have the tools to handle. Father shared a lot of the work but now it would be time to do it all. Age meanwhile had marched on.
Thankfully they had planned for the eventual outcome where one of them would
Leave earlier and had started cross training each other to appreciate the labor
And function they specialized in.
Even so managing the transition was no small feat and with help of my sibling who spent time consecutively we situated our mom into a new life. Time will tell how this part of her journey unfolds.
Perhaps it would be so.
He lived his life on his terms and left the living world relatively pain free.
An India trip therefore came about. I visited whole host of relatives in short order.. some I had not encountered in a few decades. A life and death tipping point has the ability to bring people together and it did. It gave me a chance to connect with people outside of mere relatives including folks that reside in my neighborhood where I grew up in Bombay and were the actual first responders helping my now widowed mother cope with grief and shock of a companion of many years leaving.
Some had also helped her get him hospitalized when few days before he needed to. I was able to personally visit with and thank these souls whose presence made my mother’s predicament bearable. No matter the blood line or your social standing the immediate relief in such situations is a being who amazingly steps up to do what is needed right then. To all of those beings my hats off.
India as a place is ever changing and as someone who as of date has spent more time living in America than in India, I found it hard to operate in. I was thrust into a world of logistics to help my mom manage her banking and other rudimentary chores that she didn’t necessarily have the tools to handle. Father shared a lot of the work but now it would be time to do it all. Age meanwhile had marched on.
Thankfully they had planned for the eventual outcome where one of them would
Leave earlier and had started cross training each other to appreciate the labor
And function they specialized in.
Even so managing the transition was no small feat and with help of my sibling who spent time consecutively we situated our mom into a new life. Time will tell how this part of her journey unfolds.
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