Speak politely to an enraged dragon

Disclaimer: This is an unashamed expression of personal frustration. I am not responsible for any feelings of irritation, discomfort or amusement that may result from reading this post.

This past week has been challenging in many ways and I hope you will understand why on certain days I don’t like people very much.

Life is a bitch…

Yesterday, our downstairs neighbour’s dog attacked our younger son. This has been an ongoing issue ever since they brought her into their home as a sweet little pup over six months ago. Her aggression and hostility has been a burr under our saddle despite our somewhat feeble attempts to befriend her. We have put up with her nipping at our heels, chasing us down the driveway and making it unsafe to leave the house without ensuring she was restrained. As the ever protective mother, I stood outside our neighbour’s door to express my anger at their inability to train their dog. I waited until the lady of the house deigned to make an appearance, but it was not worth her attention. Her son, however, told me in no uncertain terms that we had not made the required effort to ‘make friends’ with their pet and had we spent time doing so, this would not have happened.  Wow!  You will agree from any standpoint that it was an irrational argument and one which I gave up on since instead of an apology I got an earful about my failings. Having slept over it, it struck me this morning…in the past four years, I have never been invited to associate with these neighbours or been party to any attempts to befriend me or my children. So, by their book, we are only fit to fraternize with their dog and not them!  The sheer gall and arrogance…

Texting madness    

While driving home late in the evening the other day, I was stuck behind a car that was slow and weaving rather strangely. I thought the driver might be drunk until I saw the light of his smartphone above his steering wheel. He was texting. I was peeved and to never lose a teaching moment, told our sons, who were in the car with me, that this is highly inappropriate behaviour. I was rather surprised when the car turned into the building next to ours. Feeling the need to make a point, I parked and walked up to the young man saying, “You must realize that by texting while driving you not only endangered your life but also of my children and me.” He was good enough to say he was sorry and then the zinger as I turned to walk away from a very civilized conversation, “You didn’t say thank you,” he said. “I don’t understand what you mean,” I replied. “You should have said thank you because I apologized even when I didn’t have to,” he said. Sorry begets thank you…that’s a new one for me…

 

Leftist leanings

In another enlightening driving incident this week, I was turning left at a T-junction when a car sped up on my left and scraped me in an attempt to get past. I pulled over just a little ahead but did not get out of the car. A six foot four man in a white pathan suit knocked on my window. I rolled it down a couple of inches and said rather aggressively, “Who overtakes from the left on a turn?” To which he replied, “There was more than enough space for a car on your left…You should learn how to drive correctly.” My jaw dropped. Really?

People say the darndest things

Over the past five years, people have shown stellar compassion in many ways but some statements like, “Millions of people die every day,” “You are not the only widow,” “Get over it,” have reflected an amazing lack of grace. It was not only the content but also the source that made it feel like someone had put a finger into an un-anaesthetized, open wound and moved it around. Last week, I got another gem to add to my list of things you should not say to someone who has lost a loved one, “You can’t fathom the pain of knowing the person you love is alive but with someone else instead of you.” Of course I don’t, you idiot!…I can’t understand personal choices that result in self-inflicted pain, I can’t fathom how excruciating it is to be able to call someone on their birthday and most definitely can’t work out how, if circumstances change, the person you love may suddenly become available, giving you a second chance to make things right. I do understand, however, that death is irrevocable and sometimes words that come out of your mouth are too…

***

So in the spirit of irreverence, I have now accepted an invitation for high tea with my neighbour’s dog. It will be an opportunity to acquaint myself with her wonderfully amiable demeanour and possibly make a BFF. I will drive on the extreme left to the sylvan surroundings of our rendezvous, while mailing Shekhar@amwithGod.com and waiting for…a second chance…

***

“I'm making a list
I'm making a list of things I must say
For politeness,
And goodness and kindness and gentleness
Sweetness and rightness:
Hello
Pardon me
How are you?
Excuse me
Bless you
May I?
Thank you
Goodbye
If you know some that I've forgot,
Please stick them in you eye!”
― Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

“A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot...”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Friday

A lustrum…

I broke a tea mug the other day. It was one of a his and her pair with Shekhar’s and my name on our individual mugs. The day was our 23^rd wedding anniversary. A sign?

Yesterday it was five years since he passed away. We just finished the akhand path in his memory and my thoughts, as always, are maudlin at these milestones. How can the years pass and the moments still carry such weight? How can I be here and at that moment at the same time? I never quite understand.

I remember the day my chartered accountant was filling out my tax returns for the first time after Shekhar. When we came to the section on my marital status, I said married and he said single. I found it hard to agree and still do. For all means and purposes, I am married. This was not the end of a relationship, a parting of ways by choice…death did us part.

When you get married, you know deep down inside that whenever it happens one of you will go before the other. There are a fortunate few who do pass together, but for most it is likely that one will be left behind. I prayed it wouldn’t be me.  I didn’t believe that I would be able to survive without Shekhar, to breathe and live in a world that was marked by his absence…

For the first few days, I stood at the gate looking at how people went about their lives when mine had changed so dramatically. But had it? The sun still rose, bright and beautiful. I slept a chemically assisted sleep, I woke. My appetite disappeared then reappeared. I took one step after another, I moved, I breathed, I talked, I cried…I was amongst the living, so I lived. Without him.

In one of my favourite movies, Phenomenon, John Travolta’s character is hit by lightning and develops extraordinary abilities to read, think, grasp and understand. He meets then falls in love with a mother of two, played by Kyra Sedgwick. It turns out that his new found abilities are actually the result of a fatal brain tumour and he has a very short time to live. The movie for me is defined by a scene toward the end where they lie together and he asks her, “Will you love me for the rest of my life?” and she replies, “No, I will love you for the rest of mine.”

It is how I feel about Shekhar. A cup breaks, marital status on a form changes…I put one step in front of another and suddenly five years have passed. I have no illusions about life standing still. It will go on, more years will pass, circumstances will change, I will change but this I do know for certain, I will love him for the rest of my life.

***

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

Lao Tzu

Of our hurts we make monuments of survival. If we survive.

Joyce Carol Oates

The Curved Straight Line

 

In the fifth year since Shekhar, everything has eroded…memory, discipline, focus, joy, commitment…I have exhausted all resources – mental, emotional and physical. I yearn to wake up from what seems like an unending dream, to see the glimmer of light at the end of a long tunnel, the other side of the mountain I have climbed…to breathe an untethered breath.

In the interim, the erosion of memory has served Shekhar well. It has chipped away the unpleasant, smoothened rough edges and created this wonderful being who was human but is now an angel of a better nature. I look at myself and feel unworthy…I think of him and nothing is good enough. He is now a gold standard - impossible to match, to live up to…I live everyday with the guilt that comes from growing old when he died young…sensing, feeling, living moments he never will. That’s the compassion…the anger speaks to the fact that he is not here when I need him.

This part of the journey is familiar. I have been here before…and despite the pain, I keep returning to visit it, like picking on a scar until it bleeds. Could it be that I am walking in circles? Circles were Shekhar’s favourite shape…a curved straight line, he called them. I like triangles. Sharp, pointed…edgy. Therein lies the rub…I still use Shekhar’s words to define my life. They make more sense. But if the words are not mine...

As another milestone approaches, I am realizing circles are not my shape. No more boundaries, circumferences, curved straight lines…just edges and falling off the map.

***

Chubte kaante yaadon ke, daaman se chunta hoon

Girti deewaron ke aanchal mein zinda hoon

(Rough Translation: I pick the prickly thorns of your memories from the edges of my clothes

I am alive in the cradle of their crumbling walls)

From the lyrics of ‘Yeh hai meri kahani’ by Strings

*

The look of love

Three conversations I had with Shekhar in the week before he passed away still echo in my ears. In the course of life, we do not give what we say enough respect and even less to what we hear. Would it be better if we knew that the words that escape would be the final say on a matter? I can’t say...can you?

I still remember where we were when we had this conversation. He was tying his laces, meticulously as always, and I was standing by resenting that he would not look at me as I spoke. The morning light was ambient in the foyer of the house. “For the past eighteen years, I have given you and the children my all. I am done playing second fiddle. It’s my turn now,” I said. Shekhar continued to focus on his laces, then looked up at me. His eyes saw me. Past the crumpled night clothes and the frumpy dressing gown, straight to my soul. “This is the right place, the right time,” I continued. “Don’t for one minute think I don’t understand and know what you have done for us and the family…you are right, it is your turn,” he replied, “we’ll work out how to do this…”

Our 18^th anniversary a few days later was a memorable day, I got my driver’s license and Shekhar ran home from work with flowers! I got through on the first attempt. It had taken him two. He turned to the boys and said, “Your Mom’s much smarter than I am.” Then as we proceeded to make plans for leasing a car for me, he said, “Great! Now we can take the boys off the school bus.” I lost it. “The idea is to give me more freedom not get pulled back into doing the school runs,” I said. We were sitting on the stairs. I pulled away. Shekhar was contrite, “That’s not what I meant…” I never clarified what he did mean. I was too angry at the contradiction of our earlier conversation.

Later that day, we sat at the dining table deciding where to go for dinner to celebrate. Shekhar’s heart was set on fondue…we looked at all the places we could go but there was nothing close by and we didn’t want to drive into the city on a school night. So, we settled on French food, minus the fondue. To make up for his gaffe, Shekhar asked, “So what will we do on our 50^th anniversary?” I had thought to myself, today is just not his day. “Why 50^th? Think of the 20^th, the 25^th, even…they come before that, you know,” I couldn’t resist being snarky. He went quiet but I knew that he was trying to tell me that he was there and would always be there. For now, the 50^th was as far as he could imagine.

The boys took several photos of us, the food and the location that night. These were the last photos of Shekhar alive. In one, he’s looking at me as I look at the camera. It is a look of pure love. As I looked at it later, I realized the words didn’t matter. I was loved. I was visible. I mattered.

Do I regret what I said? No, I have no regrets…everything that needed to be said at that point in time had been said. We never pulled our punches, Shekhar and I. Ours were not fights, they were gentle reminders of promises made. A fact I am grateful for because two days later, he was gone.

On my birthday this year, the boys and I finally found fondue in the most unlikely of places. As we sat on the terrace of the restaurant in the winter sun, I know Shekhar was there. Not for the fondue. For me.

***

I see me through your eyes
Breathing new life, flying high
Your love shines the way into paradise
So I offer my life as a sacrifice
I live through your love

I see you

From the lyrics of “I see you” by Songwriters: Simon Franglen, Thaddis Harrell and James Horner

Man bites dog

On one ordinary Saturday evening, Shekhar’s life passed…one minute he was there and the next he was gone.

Then two years later, my Mom’s life passed…one moment she was there and the next she was gone.

Each time I lost more than the people I loved. I lost a definition. I moved from wife to widow in an instant, from child to…I am still looking for a new way to define myself.

After Shekhar, I lost the will to live. It was the singular thought of my children that kept me going. Until Mom… when to bypass the pain and angst I experienced after Shekhar, I decided to throw myself at life and living. I forgot definitions and said yes to everything that came my way – new job, travel, responsibility and obligation. In a ‘man bites dog’ frame of mind, I reacted, attacked and engaged with life. By ‘man bites dog’ I mean jumping into situations that are against your nature and norm that unnecessarily complicate what could have been easier if you just let sleeping dogs lie…

This has been my life for the past two years. Now, I realize allowing the pendulum to swing from one extreme to another has not helped. It is time to regroup and reassess. Time to find the centre. Time to redefine. Time to forge a bond with myself. Time to let go of the dog.

As we draw near to what would have been Shekhar’s 50^th birthday, the boys and I have taken a leap from our errand based lives to create new memories. To overlay the sadness with a new map…it is not just a time to look forward but also a time to look back and see just how far we have come. I have been afraid to do that…what if I turn back and he is just a speck on the horizon. What if we have come too far…

***

For too much of my life 
I have been a noun; 
child, boy, man, father, whatever; 
nouns of identity. 
Often, preceded by too many adjectives…

I exist through my living, 
not because of some label. 
Descriptives enhance mind pictures, 
but do not define the essence of my spirit. 
I am living. I am being. 
I am not a noun. 
I am a verb. 

—From I am a verb by Gene McParland, North Babylon, NY

Still buffering...

As I looked to upgrade the technology of our PC from the old to the new, I came upon an app the boys already knew about. In my excitement I complained, “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?” Our younger son, always quick with his repartee told me, “Mom, when it comes to technology, you are still buffering…”

I was laughing so hard, I couldn’t take offence…just the vision of myself trapped in the ever turning hourglass, the little spinning wheel and the ever so slow increasing scale of the buffer was and still is enough to make me chuckle.

It was a very profound analogy on so many levels. In the four years since Shekhar, I have had to reconstruct everything in my life. Every day when I feel more confident about something, I am equally frustrated by the lack of progress on another. It is hard to build when you are trying to leave space for someone who is no longer there. How do you accommodate a memory? Still I have soldiered on…stretched, challenged, redefined, fallen apart and put myself together again. I have no long term vision now, no five and ten year plans like I had with Shekhar, so in the true sense, I am still buffering for a life in the absence of a better half.

As the boys achieve new milestones, grow out of their schoolboy skins into young men…I have realized they are buffering too…for new beginnings, challenges and adulthood. We are all works in progress. As a salute to the times, where technology defines your vocabulary...buffering for me now is just another name for living. 

***

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.

Father Alfred D’Souza

Outsourced...

We go through life pushing ourselves to achieve and accomplish...goals, dreams, milestones. When we are weak, we look outside ourselves for someone to motivate us, believe in us...be our champion.

I recently saw a popular British comedian push himself beyond his physical limitations on television. As his feet dragged and energy flagged towards the end, family and cheering supporters egged him on. His triumph over physical odds would  not have been possible had he not outsourced his motivation to those who believed he could do it. He drank from the well of their strength, support and belief. I used to drink from the well of Shekhar's belief in me. He saw in me what I could not see...he was my champion, my motivator, the one who helped me overcome what he liked to call my 'ignition problems.'

I also outsourced my prayers to my mother. She had a better connect with God and made my case to Him when I could not. She spent long hours communing with God, sharing, requesting, cajoling, begging on our behalf - for our success, our happiness, our place in the world. It was enough for me to know I always had someone in my corner - no questions asked. That she had God on her side was just a bonus. When I found her letters among old photographs the other day, her prayers and blessings floated off the yellowed pages.

These were my people.

Today, as we began the akhand path to mark Shekhar's fourth death anniversary on April 19, I missed my mother standing by my side, praying for me and my children. I missed drawing on Shekhar's strength. God has taken my people.

I have now decided to bypass the physical and directly outsource my strength, motivation and prayer to God. Although I struggle to trust Him again, He has brought me this far...it is time to let go and let God.

***

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones. And when you have finished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

Victor Hugo

How can He be perfect?

Everything He ever makes...dies!

George Carlin