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The last journey


He is lying on the floor, sans life. There are people around him with their heads bowed in obeisance. Their hands clutched tightly. Most of them are quiet. Some are trying to reach out to the ones who are sobbing. A very few closest to the one who has already left for his last journey to God's home are struggling to comfort each other. Their fatigued eyes are swollen. There are tears. Endless tears being wiped and a few tears splash from eyes to cheeks, linger on the chin for a few moments and fall on the ground. A few more people arrive with lowered eyes and serious faces. They strain to catch the story of how it all happened. They murmur some sorrowful words of consolation that evoke painful emotions tapping new spaces of tender aches that are too raw and fragile to handle. Hugs are given. Prayers are said. Then it is back to silence. People disperse after learning that cremation is planned for the next day. Now there are only very close few in the room with my father lying on the floor, lifeless! 

When did he grow so old? Even at the age of 78, there was no trace of ageing in his spirit. Not even in his aches and pains, the sagging skin, wrinkles, lost teeth or his few regrets of having to say goodbyes more often. After my mother's sad demise last year with whom he had lived for more than five decades, he had great difficulty coming to terms with her loss and to learn to accept the inevitable. But he believed in "show must go on" and survived beautifully. The last time I spoke with him, a day before his death he joked, "I am not dying before completing a century. There is still LOT to do!" 

Forgive me if I am losing coherence of words or thoughts today. There is mad rush of fragmented and convoluted thoughts in my mind as I write this. My world has fallen apart and I feel as if I am careening into inconceivable abyss. Utter arrant trauma of the fact that my father is gone forever and my helplessness is too much to bear. A HUGE part of me has died with my dad. Death is a strange calamity just like life with its own absurdities. The feelings of emptiness, numbness, the loss still deeply rooted with heart strings, slow and subtle erosion of self and net worth of pain, the bereft longing to behold again, the weight of loss is too much to bear!

"Life has to be a joy, a dance, a celebration. And when death comes, it has to be welcomed with silence, with serenity-wholeheartedly, not holding anything back. This is the way to kill death itself" Osho

This is precisely how my father lived till his last breath. He celebrated every single moment in life, had great audacity to dream BIG, showed immense courage to face the consequences and emerged a winner despite all the odds. Of course he made mistakes like any other human being but displayed great strength of character in apologizing and correcting them without iota of ego. He touched so many lives, lived on his own terms, made no compromises and died a proud man with great dignity. 

The perfect tribute for him would be to follow his path with smiling face and share joy and happiness. His last words for me on a day before he passed away were that he was very proud of me and that he would always pray for me till his last breath! I know my guardian angel is not with me anymore but there is a strange sense of security in knowing that he would be watching over me even from heaven. 

R.I.P Baba. It was great honour to have a father like you. Strange, words really fail to define what you really mean to me!

"Empty handed I entered 
the world
barefoot I leave it.
My coming my going--
two simple happenings
that got entangled
like dew drops 
on a lotus leaf
I vanish."

By shinsui

   

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