I really don’t understand life. It’s really all very complicated. We all love someone and we are all close to certain people and in the end, they leave us. When they leave us it feels like everything is over, they create a void in our life and this void seems to be almost irreparable but here comes the irony, with time we tend to forget such people, we forget people that were once very close to us. Yeah we occasionally remember them, but life goes on, we move on and they just become a memory. Well you might be thinking why I am writing this all. Actually 2 years back on the very same day I lost my Nani (maternal grandmother) and I felt like everything was over, I was heartbroken and really very sad that time and I thought I will always be the same but no, I was wrong, I moved on, the bond, the attachment that I had just got weaker and weaker and she just became a memory. The fact that I can’t see her ever again always make me feel sad but it’s just not the same as it was on the day she left to heaven.
I am dedicating this piece to her and will be sharing some moments that I shared with her. Well I haven’t seen many deaths in my life and to be really very honest I don’t want to see any but I have seen people carrying dead bodies for the last rites and to tell you the truth, I being a child was not very bothered. I didn’t have the exact understanding of death and as I don’t know the dead person it just seemed normal, and I know it would feel normal to most of you as well because it’s the human tendency.
But we all create certain attachment to people in this world and losing them is the worst feeling ever, maybe you have experienced that feeling or maybe not, but for all those who have, you might know that it comes back to almost normal with time. Well I was close to my Nani, I have spent almost all my summer vacations in my Nani’s house and all that time I was there I got an emotional attachment.
My Nani was one of the strongest people that I have known all my life. She was a pious lady and was very supportive. She was far sighted and had a loving nature, everyone loved her. I don’t exactly remember my childhood but I do remember the stories that she told me. Someone had really said it right, to have grandparents is the best blessing in the world, and yet most of us don’t take our grandparents seriously. If I talk about from their perspective they don’t want anything back from us but they love us like we are everything and we just seem to ignore this love. Children and old people are almost similar, I have tried to find similarities between them and realised that they have almost everything in common except for the fact that they are aged and more experienced than the children.
Well coming back to Nani, she was a religious lady and had a vast knowledge about gods, when I was young she told me different stories about god and about the creation of the world, she told me about the four Yugas and the war of Mahabharata. She used to message me when I was young and sometimes she used to sing bed time songs to me. In the mornings she used to ask me to study, which I always hated (I guess most of you would relate). She used to go to brahama kumari and after returning back she used to tell me the discussions they had there.
Nani was very hard-working as well. She had a broken leg but still she used to help with the kitchen work, I don’t know how someone could be that strong but she never let anyone know about the pain she was going through. She always had that soft blissful smile in her face even when she was in great pain. She was a great person and I really miss her a lot. You know its really very hard to write all this and I am just trying to control the emotions that I am feeling inside.
She made me what I am today and had a great hand in shaping me, she taught me love, she taught me patience and not only that she taught me how to be a good person. She had a great positive impact on my life.’
I can’t really forget the day she died, I was in Nainital getting ready for my college, she was in her 80s and had grown too weak, I was about to go to my college when my Mama (maternal Uncle) called my papa from Almora telling him that my Nani is really very ill and they should go and meet her. I felt bad and waited for a little long discussing with my parents that they should immediately leave and I would not be accompanying them as I had an important practical to attend to, my Mother started packing clothes and getting ready when there was another call, which got disconnected, maybe due to bad network, there were calls again and again but none were being connected.
Having those many calls made us realise that something bad had happened and when we were finally able to get connected the sad news was right before her, I saw my mother crying, it gave me palpitations and I started getting uncomfortable, my mother was having tears in her eyes and I couldn’t do anything. I felt sad and decided that I would go to Almora with my parents and we left. My mother was crying the entire way and I was just feeling bad, we reached Almora and bought some of things as our final tribute.
I was the first one to reach there and seeing my Nani on the floor, looking like a skeleton, gave me a shock, I was speechless dumbfounded, well I can’t describe how I was feeling at that moment but I couldn’t believe what death could do to a person. How it could turn someone full of love, full of life into weak and scary like a skeleton. I was feeling afraid and I had no idea what to do, there was pandit ji sitting performing the last rites and there were people crying all over, seeing Nani lying as such made me heartbroken and there were tears in my eye. I was unable to face anyone, and when my mother reached there she started crying loudly and seeing her like that made me more emotional.
I realised that day, how sad and depressing could life be and why should we live it to the fullest because death will not spare anyone, no matter what kind of person you are and what you do, life is meant to be lived it’s not a race, it’s not a competition but a journey, it’s something which should be enjoyed and not wasted over fighting for immaterial things. Life is meant for loving and to be loved it’s not meant to cut people out of your life, we all are humans and we should all live as a family and that is how we can make our life amazing.