These are the moments when the true import of the phrase, that 'you will live in our memories ', is dawning up on me. Each and every moment my mind is trying to relive the moments spent with my dear father in law who passed away on friday 21 august 2015.
i am witnessing for the first time what it means for a family to pull itself together after it has been rendered fulcrum-less all of a sudden. Seeing my Mami fight and cope up with the loss, i learn what it means to live on and find purpose in doing so, after some one who has been everything of your life taken away.
my first encounters with Mama was when i used to create opportunities to visit my would be before marriage when i dropped in out of the blue at their doorstep, unannounced. now when i look back , i can imagine how very embarrassing it should have been on my would-be in-laws. But mama would not show not even the slightest trace of this embarrassment and would let me into their house. this and his attitude in subsequent situations would tell me the supreme confidence he would have on the inherent goodness of people and he valued human relationships more than anything else.
when it was time for me and sumi to move separately, he would not buy any of my arguments refusing his benevolence and would buy us all the best household utilities for us to set and run a home. when buying anything for anyone he would always pay attention to every detail and want it to be the best. he would learn of my love for sweets and subsequently every time before i reached their house a box of sweets would have arrived. he would shower you with gifts and would be so hard to make him accept one that i always considered it a great privilege to be able to be of some use to him.
while i always looked upto him as a man of big heart and a golden charecter, it was tough for me to have a normal conversation with him in those initial days. i always required an interpreter to make sense of those 'tongue-in-cheek' remarks that flowed casually from him. My reserved nature made me think i had to keep my guard and keep away from him.
but soon i would learn that my in-laws loved to talk and i had to learn the art of conversing. for example, when you are asked ,' when did you come', it would not satisfy them if you said 'this morning'. you should rather expand upon it, like ' i took the afternoon train yesterday, took permission in office,.. etc., etc. and brief them about your trip.
i had a brief rough patch with him, but we got over it as if nothing happened. That was his magnanimity.
it was only for a very shortwhile from my marriage that i saw him as healthy person. after a few months, he was always suffering from one or the other sickness. every time i visited, the house would wear a very gloomy and a serious look. the monotony would be broken only by the joy and the cheer brought in by the visits of our cousin's children.
Now that he has been relieved of his mortal ailing frame, the house should breathe free, but i am not sure how. i would miss a loving giant, who was cruelly incapacitated by his sickness, to talk to. i am sad that my children would not know of what a loving giant their grand dad was, i can scarce show them a person as loving and magnanimous as him.
i am witnessing for the first time what it means for a family to pull itself together after it has been rendered fulcrum-less all of a sudden. Seeing my Mami fight and cope up with the loss, i learn what it means to live on and find purpose in doing so, after some one who has been everything of your life taken away.
my first encounters with Mama was when i used to create opportunities to visit my would be before marriage when i dropped in out of the blue at their doorstep, unannounced. now when i look back , i can imagine how very embarrassing it should have been on my would-be in-laws. But mama would not show not even the slightest trace of this embarrassment and would let me into their house. this and his attitude in subsequent situations would tell me the supreme confidence he would have on the inherent goodness of people and he valued human relationships more than anything else.
when it was time for me and sumi to move separately, he would not buy any of my arguments refusing his benevolence and would buy us all the best household utilities for us to set and run a home. when buying anything for anyone he would always pay attention to every detail and want it to be the best. he would learn of my love for sweets and subsequently every time before i reached their house a box of sweets would have arrived. he would shower you with gifts and would be so hard to make him accept one that i always considered it a great privilege to be able to be of some use to him.
while i always looked upto him as a man of big heart and a golden charecter, it was tough for me to have a normal conversation with him in those initial days. i always required an interpreter to make sense of those 'tongue-in-cheek' remarks that flowed casually from him. My reserved nature made me think i had to keep my guard and keep away from him.
but soon i would learn that my in-laws loved to talk and i had to learn the art of conversing. for example, when you are asked ,' when did you come', it would not satisfy them if you said 'this morning'. you should rather expand upon it, like ' i took the afternoon train yesterday, took permission in office,.. etc., etc. and brief them about your trip.
i had a brief rough patch with him, but we got over it as if nothing happened. That was his magnanimity.
it was only for a very shortwhile from my marriage that i saw him as healthy person. after a few months, he was always suffering from one or the other sickness. every time i visited, the house would wear a very gloomy and a serious look. the monotony would be broken only by the joy and the cheer brought in by the visits of our cousin's children.
Now that he has been relieved of his mortal ailing frame, the house should breathe free, but i am not sure how. i would miss a loving giant, who was cruelly incapacitated by his sickness, to talk to. i am sad that my children would not know of what a loving giant their grand dad was, i can scarce show them a person as loving and magnanimous as him.
No comments:
Post a Comment