The C – Word

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It might explode like a grenade thrown into a small room. I worried that everyone might be put right off by it. They might log out, log off, shut their laptops and go for a walk.

What do you mean ‘Celebrate’? What is there to celebrate? Nothing. NA – Not Applicable.

After a severance such as this. The death of my child? How can I? To me, it does not apply. I belong to another club now. Here, the air is laden with a sense of exclusion and non-deserving. Here, the rejection of invitations to celebrate is automatic.  

Memories of our kids. The foods they loved, toys, TV shows, films, books, nursery rhymes, practical jokes, school and Christmases. Our hugs. Sweet stories revealed through their friends after they died. Their hidden kindnesses. Laughter. Tears. A whole life worth remembering. Worth honouring. Celebrating.

What of us? Parents. Alive. Old labels stripped off and new strange ones slathered on. The ground beneath our feet taken away and replaced with quicksand. Our identity shattered. Life in the After becoming something resembling life. An unthinkable exile. Aloneness, inside the non-understanding of the world. Every day, a fight. A reconciliation. Every day, showing up and facing whatever shows up. Keeping the broken bits of our hearts held together with the glue of love inside our silently sighing chests. Still alive.

The invitation at the Circle of Remembrance was to celebrate ourselves for being here. Now. It did not go off like a granade in a small room. No one left in a huff. It was accepted graciously. At the end of an hour and a half, the virtual space was filled with acknowledgement of things to celebrate – our love, patience, resilience and compassion reflected in this poem by Lucille Clifton written in the 1960s. We can replace ‘nonwhite and woman’ with any other phrase:

won’t you celebrate with me

what I have shaped into

a kind of life? i had no model.

born in Babylon

both non-white and woman

what did I see to be except myself?

i made it up

here on this bridge between

star-shine and clay

my one hand holding tight

my other hand;

                        come celebrate

with me that everyday

something has tried to kill me

and has failed.

PS: Circle of Remembrance is an international online peer-support group for bereaved parents that has been effectively working for the past three years and four months. Please visit the website http://www.core-community.com to learn more. Please recommend it to any parents you know who might be struggling alone after a tragic loss.

How we do it is important.

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They said that Saagar was discharged from the Mental health services because he wanted to return to his education. His parents wanted the same. Correct.

The Home Treatment Team decided it was the best thing. Great. They handed over his care to his GP.

After his death, carelessness was found to be the root of the problem. His Discharge Summary did not name Saagar’s illness. The person who wrote it had never met Saagar. He was carrying out a formality without understanding its significance. He didn’t quite grasp his role in the business of keeping a person alive.

His GP, on the basis of the information he had received went on to treat Saagar for an illness he did not have with medications positively dangerous for young people. He believed he was doing his best by maintaining Saagar’s confidentiality and not sharing his para-suicidal status with us while expecting us to look after him at home. He did his job but his patient died.

They all did what they thought right but how they did it determined the outcome, which was tragic.

The same applies to small things. I can request someone to stop smoking in my space but how I do it matters. I can ask someone to pick up their litter, take their shoes off the train seat and use ear-phones while watching videos on their cell-phone.

Multitasking is not to be glorified.

Doing one thing at a time and doing it well is of much more value than doing five things simultaneously and all shoddy. For instance, being a 100% present during a conversation without checking my phone once. Leaving it on silent mode in the other room with the door shut is my secret for getting into the flow of writing. Being fully present to the page and the pen and the soft scratchy sound that the tip of my pen makes as it moves in a squiggly line from left to right.  Letting everything disappear except the ink freeing itself into the world.

Ugadi

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We were in a small coffee-growing village of Karnataka, South India earlier this month. We were invited out for breakfast, lunch and dinner on the 9th of April. It was a special festival for the locals, first day of the new year as per the Hindu calendar.

The ladies were wearing crisp bright new silk sarees and strings of white and orange flowers in their hair. The ground just outside the front entrance of each home was decorated with a colourful geometric pattern made of white rice flour and colourful flower petals, to welcome guests and Gods into their homes. All the doorways had a string of auspicious green mango leaves strung across the top as they drive away negative vibes and infuse a positive energy into the environment.  

As always, food was a big part of the festivities. As soon as we sat down at the table, a fine wheat chapatti stuffed with a thin layer of jaggery was placed on our plate, rich with the warm fragrance of cardamom. A big spoon of homemade ghee was poured on top of it. I was transported back to when my grandmother made these for me when I was five and we were oblivious of the existence of such things as calories.

Then came a small bowl of yellowish powder, called Pachadi. I had never seen it before. Our hostess picked up some of it in the tip of a teaspoon and placed it in my right palm. It was to be taken just like that. Dry. I did as I was told and was perplexed by the taste, which was a mish-mash of this and that. After a moment of utter confusion, I had to wash it down with water and ask what it was. The gentle hostess explained that it was a mixture of Neem flowers, chilli powder, tamarind, raw mango, jaggery and salt.  But why? I asked. It’s not very nice.

It reflects the various facets of life she said – Bitter. Pungent. Sour. Astringent. Sweet and salty. Ugadi signifies leaving the past behind and embracing the beginning of a new phase in life with a positive frame of mind, knowing all these facets exist and always will. Happy Ugadi.

Coffee by the sea.

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After many weeks of sitting by myself, writing quietly in a quiet house, thirsty for some newness, I made my way to a local café by the sea. I found a nice sofa with no one around and opened my note book to a blank page. Took the cap off my pen and leant back into the softness of the cushion on my seat, appreciating the salt in the breeze and the gentle lapping of the sea. Just then a trendy young couple sauntered in and settled on the lounge chairs in front of me, exactly between the sea and me.  Frilly bikini top and fake eye-lashes, beach bod and all. Tall hunk of a guy next to her, who seemingly spoke only in murmurs. They ordered their brunch and as soon as the waiter left, a sharp feminine ‘you can be so rude. Sha’aap’ erupted out of a largely hush-hush conversation.

The air in my corner of the café tightened as multiple furrows appeared on her lovely forehead. Just as I was about to cover my ears with head-phones, she stood up and stomped out.

That was my first laugh of the day.

It was loud enough that other guests might have heard it but it happened without a notice or warning. I was simply the observer. Not judging. Not making snide remarks. Being present. Documenting.  Smiling.

Five minutes later she returned with a big plastic bottle of water, hiding her red eyes behind her Victoria Beckham’esque sun-glasses. The red tip of her nose and deep pink peaks of her cheeks gave her story away. Her pumped up lips had lost every curve and had become a pale pink ‘equal to’ sign. She sat down and pulled her knees up into her chest, her feet resting on the edge of the seat. Her head buried deep inside the latest slab of I-phone held in her right hand, a tender-leafy-twig-tattoo snaking across the back of it. 

Her pancakes arrived. She angrily poured all the maple syrup on them and started shoving bits stuck on the end of a fork into her mouth. The plate was cleaned out in one minute.

Her chilled bottle of water was forming a little pool at its base. The green smoothie was executed next. The silence around that table was stunning. Not the type I had hoped for but definitely good for writing.

He stared straight at the sea between mouthfuls of his three-egg-omelette and orange juice. When he finished, out came his slab and his head turned down by ninety degrees. She rolled tobacco in a white skin with a white filter as her fingers negotiated the movement of the sea-breeze. Her nail-beds were tiny, as if bitten off by shiny young teeth before they had a chance to grow. Her lighter struggled to light the cigarette. She smoked as she studied the sea. Her right hand still holding the moving images on her slab. For the next half an hour, they both were engrossed in their own respective distant worlds with no need for any exchange of any kind. The silence around them relaxed over that time. They paid the bill and walked out hand in hand, everything alright with the world again.

That was my second laugh of the day.

Equal night.

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Vernal means relating to occurring in the spring. Fresh or new or youthful.

Yesterday the light and dark equalized for the first time this year. Today has pulled a little more light over to its side than Yesterday. The Earth’s axis tilting as far as it could and the Sun shifting to meet with it, like lovers under a warm blanket on a cool night. The soil awakening, the snow melting, the birds singing a little bit earlier in the morning, as if on cue. The leaning and longing of the oncoming Summer taking root here, now. The round shutters of our pupils readjusting, recalibrating. The underground murmurings of tulip and daffodil bulbs, the fluorescent greening of the tips of the trees looking forward, looking upward, rising in love.

The end of one thing, the inception of another. The old continuing as new. The same Earth, the same Sun, now in a lighter role, in a brighter mood, curating space for a distinguished guest to sneak in. A shy new bud on a rose bush, a fresh tender heart-shaped leaf still half-folded on the Anthurium, a long-tailed black bird strolling on the curved spine of a green coconut frond, young green mangos picking up the redness of the Sun.

It slinks in as a cup of fresh mint tea, a phone call from a long-lost friend, an old photograph of my grand-mother. Sometimes as a spell of utter silence. Sometimes as the whisper of my breath. Joy chooses me and shows up in unexpected places, patiently waiting to be recognized. Acknowledged. Embraced.