Winter mornings, go away! Cloud skies, I don't want to wake up to you. Sometimes I feel that waking up is becoming harder each day. The sun looks like a pale yolk and I feel so blue. These early winter mornings are tough, I tell you!
[Do Read: A Dad's Advice to the Daughter He loves]
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Now I don't know how these last months have been for you. For me, October has been the toughest month so far. My family lost a very dear and much loved person. It was a huge personal loss for me and nothing less than devastating for my parents. But this loss also taught me lessons that I can never forget.
[Do Read: A Dad's Advice to the Daughter He loves]
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Now I don't know how these last months have been for you. For me, October has been the toughest month so far. My family lost a very dear and much loved person. It was a huge personal loss for me and nothing less than devastating for my parents. But this loss also taught me lessons that I can never forget.
Beautiful memories live forever
My mother tells me that when she got married and came to her new home, it is my aunts (father's sisters) who made her feel most loved, cared for and welcome. My aunt Manivalima, who passed away in October, was more like a best friend to my mother. Their love towards each other was such that whatever my aunt would cook for lunch, she would send to my mother and vice versa. This loving exchange of "lunch boxes" lasted for at least two to three decades. They may also have had their differences of opinion but the love and respect they shared with each other always prevailed and stood strong.
At the time of my marriage, my aunt Manivalima was a huge pillar of emotional strength and support to my parents. She volunteered to go with my mother to invite guests and stayed on to help my parents with almost everything. Her amazing love, patience and attention covered the finest details that are required to be looked into when a family makes arrangements for a daughter's marriage. Her sacrifices are plenty but we have so few accounts of them because real love keeps no accounts.
Cherish the love you shared, hold it close to your heart
As I look back at my aunt's love, what comes to the surface is that her love was very silent yet deep as the sea, fiercely protective and intense in a loving way.
When we were kids, my aunt would bring tiny bangles of every hue and design for my kid sister. She loved putting kohl on top of my eyebrows as I had light-coloured eyebrows and she used to tell my mother that it would not look good on me. Her daily reminder to my mother to put natural, home made kohl to darken my eyebrows worked like love always does. While my aunt loved her sons like her life, she also showed her sea-deep love towards me and my sister at all times. In everything she did or said, she did it as though we are her own children. She had nothing artificial about her and would not hesitate to scold us if we did something wrong. That was her uninhibited, mother's love towards us. The best way for us to honour her is to remember her with love, cherish her presence in our life as the blessing it always is and hold her love close to our hearts.
Life is short, find joy in little things
My aunt has faced many hardships in life but as children, my sister and I saw none of this in her actions. In all our interactions with my aunt, she was mostly trying to give the best of herself to us. She liked to make sure we had snacks to eat when we were at her home. She liked to pamper us with food that she would make at home. She would not let us go back home without eating anything. Her affection and love consistently extended not just to me and to my sister but to my husband, my in-laws and to my son.
When my son was born, he used to cry at night as most babies do. One night, my aunt sang a lullaby, which put him to sleep instantly. From that day, my aunt would finish her chores in a rush, come to our home to put him to sleep on time and she did this every day without fail. Every time she sang this lullaby, my son would fall asleep and I would heave a sigh of relief! When we moved to Delhi, I used to sing him this lullaby song to put him to sleep. It always worked!
Whenever my son visited, she would never let him return to Delhi without buying him a toy to play with or a set comprising of a T-shirt and shorts to wear. It is her loving nature that comes through in all of this. That was her love, unspoken though it was, but also a beautiful offering, a sacrifice, because life is short and the best way to live it is find joy in little things, make others happy even when you have many other challenges to deal with. My aunt Manivalima taught me this in her own way.
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This may sound silly but I have an admission to make. I am a very emotional creature and I just don't know how to "handle" the grief that comes with losing someone who has been a part of my existence.
The truth is that I cannot believe a person I love and respect so much is no longer visible in my life. Maybe it helps to pretend for a while that she's still there, watching over us, not gone yet. Perhaps that's my way of dealing with my aunt's absence and slowly coming to the realization that relationships never die.
Memories have a way of bringing back the light and sparkle in everything that once was....ah, the magic of memories!
2018 has taught me to accept that life is short and to count each day's blessings with a grateful heart.
Every day, I pray for the happiness and well being of all the wonderful people who have been part of my life's journey and I make it a point to thank those who have hurt me because I see that too as a gift of learning now. They taught me more about myself than I can ever thank them for.
My aunt, in a way, has taught me to love and accept everyone the way they are, just as she accepted me and my sister with so much love, just the way we are.
Blessed to be surrounded by my aunt's love even when she is not physically with us anymore.
Now I think I really need a cup of piping hot chocolate to settle in for a long winter's night.
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