This morning I was greeted with the news that an elder member of our family had passed away. She was a wonderful lady, so kind and gentle, always with a smile on her face and whatever she said, it never hurt, because her lilting voice was always so soothing. She was not a close blood member of our family, but through the marriage of one of my aunts, and our bonds grew as families got to know each other.
I spoke with my Pops this morning, my mum and he were both pretty close to this lady, and we both know she was old, and that she was suffering in her last few years.
It was for the best.
Can I go on record and say I HATE that little sentence with a vengeance.
I know you don’t want someone you love to suffer, or to go on suffering, but equally I don’t really want that person to have gone, so how was it best? For them, yes, for me, not at all. Selfish, I know, but that’s just how I feel.
My Pops has always been very spiritual and he has a very serene way of thinking about death, and coping with it. He really doesn’t cry, or get extremely emotional. He prays. I have seen, over the years, many loved ones leave us, one of the cons of having a large family, but it has exposed us to death from a young age. I would see him be comforting to everyone, but never really need comfort in the same way himself. When I was old enough to think about these things, I asked him why he didn’t cry, or get upset.
He explained that he had never known his father, he passed on when my Pops was tiny, and yes, he used to get emotional at news like this, just like us, but then something happened, and it put life into perspective for him. He left his family in Kenya, to study in India, in Mumbai to do his Dentistry training. It was a long haul to get there in those days, so not an easy feat to come and go freely, and telephones were still few and far between in the village in Kenya where they lived. Letters would take weeks to arrive, not like the texts and emails we have now, or the WhatsApp and various instant messenger services available to anyone with a mobile.
One day he received a letter at his dormitory from his older brother, informing him that their mother had passed away. He sat in silence for a while, digesting the news. After a while, his room mate came in, and noticed that there was a letter for home. always hungry to hear of home news, even thought it wasn’t his own, he asked Pops how everyone was. Pops replied, quite calmly, that the letter was sent to tell him that he had lost his mother. Immediately the room mate burst into tears, and went to console my Pops, who he then noticed wasn’t crying.
“Why aren’t you crying, dost (friend)? Beji has left us, aren’t you sad?”
Pops then said that yes he was sad, but he had looked at the post mark of the letter, and the date his brother said that Beji had passed on. “I realised that at the time my mother was struggling for her last breaths, I was on a stage, dancing and celebrating… my mother passed on, and it took me 3 weeks to find out. But all that time, the world kept on revolving, we all kept on living, and even now I know, things haven’t stopped.” He wasn’t in a position to rush home, funerals happened almost immediately at that time , so he silently said goodbye to his mother himself and said his own prayers for her.
From then on, he didn’t let death scare him, or upset him. He realised that life goes on, and we need to give the departed soul peace by calmly remembering them. And it is true. I totally understand where Pops was coming from.
But I can’t guarantee I can do that. I am a very emotional person, and even though I am known for smiling all the time, when someone I love passes on, tears will always spring to my eyes, I do question why…
It scares me already, what will I be like when it is my own parents? I’m definitely not ready, but I do know we have to say goodbye some day, hopefully some day a long long long time away…
But I Smile Anyway... 