A New Year's Wish

      As far as I can remember, I have always had new year resolutions. Promises I'd make to myself only to forget all about them a few days into the new year. 
      But I have never had a new year wish, not really. It never struck me I could look up at a star and wish for something precious this year. 
      There are three things I badly want for this year. One is to do with my writings. The second is to do with the big move. The third is to do with the health of a family member. Not necessarily in that order, each one is just as crucial as the other two. 
      But above all, this year I only wish to be able to adapt to circumstances better without straying away too much from my dreams. That is all I ask for this year. 2012 taught me the importance of hard work, of the honest-to-goodness type. I only ask for the ability to keep at it this year, with a little more wisdom and a lot more faith. So when I look back, I will have the contentment of knowing that not a day was wasted, not an opportunity was lost, not a good deed was left undone, not a joy was forgotten, and that there was never a moment without love. 

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Grandma, I will always have a fond memory of you.

Grandma died today.

My paternal Grandma.

She was 85. Or 86. 

She would have turned a year older tomorrow, if one were to consult the Hindu calendar.

They say she was bedridden for a month, slowly losing her faculties. Incapable of speech, unable to eat, barely able to move by herself. 

The tears did not flow at first, not when Mom broke the news to me this evening. I shed them when Dad came to the phone later. My mother has died, he said simply.

My last memory of her is at the time of my cousin’s engagement ceremony in Madras. As is wont to happen in occasions such as these, there was the plethora of uncles and aunts and distant and not-so-distant cousins and their families and friends and their families and friends and their families and friends. I don’t believe that the cousin, whose engagement was being celebrated, was anything close to a celebrity to have warranted such a crowd. All the adults there had come to see Grandma. All the kids were being introduced by said adults to Grandma. She was the popular one. She always had been. They were all queuing up to greet her. I remember saying to her, “Look at these people queuing up to see you like devotees in a temple waiting to catch a glimpse of God.” My remark pleased her immensely and she did not let go of my hand for a long time that evening.

That will always be a fond memory. I remember little else about her. I wish I had known her well enough to feel the pain of loss. I only have some vague remembrances of brief visits to her house. In some other era. In my childhood.

I miss her. In some odd way. The way you miss the halcyon days of childhood and youth after they are long gone. You know it is lost forever, but you don’t halt there. Life moves on. And so do you.

I hope Dad is not hurting too much.

Death of a loved one always makes us confront our own inescapable mortality.

Take care of her, dear Cosmos. I hope you have taken her to some happier place.

It happened sometime this morning. At 8:45 am. I hope she slept well last night.

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