My Aunt's resurrection!

My mother's elder sister. Asthmatic from birth. Full time medicines from childhood. A body that never gave her a single day of peace. Breathing was not automatic for her. It was a struggle. A daily negotiation with lungs that did not want to cooperate. Most of us breathe without thinking. She thought about every breath. Every inhale. Every exhale. Every moment.

She was studious. Ambitious. She completed her degree, then a bachelor's in education, then a master's. She became a lecturer in a teacher's training college. She married an advocate. His home was sixty kilometers away from her family home. She relocated, as tradition demanded. Her college was in her hometown. So every day, she traveled one hundred and twenty kilometers by train. Up and down. Every day. With lungs that barely worked. With a body that was already fighting just to exist.

She worked in the same college till retirement. Became the principal. Completed another master's in Philosophy along the way. Her whole life, she traveled. Her whole life, she struggled. Her whole life, her body was full of complications from the long term use of medicines. She suffered hell. Her whole life.

She was not a kind person. Most people hated her. Including me. She was always angry. Always hyper. Always on edge. Maybe that is what happens when you cannot breathe. When every breath is a fight, you do not have the energy to be gentle. When your body is at war with itself, you do not have the patience for small talk. I understood that. Not at the time. Later. Much later.

Somewhere deep inside me, there was always a slight pain. A quiet compassion. Thinking of her suffering. I did not like her. But I could not ignore her pain. I do not know if she liked me. I do not know if she had any particular feeling toward me at all. But there was a confused love from her, I think. Or maybe I imagined it. Maybe I wanted to believe that behind the anger, behind the hyper nature, behind the sharp words, there was something soft that did not know how to show itself.

I met her only a few times in my life. When she rarely visited my mother. Brief visits. Formal conversations. Nothing deep. Nothing lasting. Just enough to know she existed. Just enough to have a memory, however thin.

In late 2017, I was working in Bangalore. One morning, my mother called. Her elder sister had passed away.

I did not cry. I did not feel grief. Not the kind I expected. I felt something else. A disturbance. From the core of my existence. Something was wrong. Not wrong with the world. Wrong with me. I could not place it. I could not name it. It was not sorrow. It was not tears. It was something deeper. Something older. Something that did not know how to become grief.

I did not know whether to go to the funeral. I had memories of her. Very few. But they were bubbling in my mind. Small moments. Small images. Her face. Her voice. The way she sat. The way she looked at me, maybe with something like love, maybe with nothing at all. I called a friend. Told him the news. Asked him what I should do.

Then I said it. I have memories of her. I must go.

He said yes.

I called my manager. Requested leave. He agreed. I started for my native.

I reached the next day morning. Her body was still in the morgue. Her elder son was coming from the UK. He works there. They were waiting for him. I waited too. The day I reached, he also came. Her body was taken to her home.

I reached around early afternoon. The funeral was over. She was cremated in her compound. The fire was still burning. Gulping the garlands. The wreaths. The wood. Her much suffered body. I could see the flames from a distance. I did not go close. I stood there. Watching. Not crying. Not grieving. Just watching.

By early evening, it was over. The fire had done its work. The body was gone. The smoke had risen and scattered. The crowd had thinned. I was strolling through their home. I ended up in the kitchen.

It was too lonely in a very weird way. The shelves had all sorts of utensils. The bins had grains and flour. Everything was in its place. Everything was waiting. For someone who would never come back. I felt a strange grief in all things present in the kitchen. As though everything there was missing her. The pots. The pans. The jars. The spoons. They had been used by her. Held by her. Washed by her. Now they sat in silence. Not knowing what to do without her hands.

I left the place by late evening. Chatted with cousins. With relatives. With known people who came to pay their respects. Nothing deep. Nothing lasting. Just words to fill the silence.

I went there every morning. For the ten days of ceremonies. With great difficulty, I convinced my manager to approve an extension. Ten days of leave. He agreed. I stayed.

Everyday, I would go to her house. Sit on the front porch. Silently. Not thinking. Not meditating. Just sitting. Watching. Waiting. By evening, I would leave.

Everyday, I would scan the place where her body was reduced to ashes. The small patch of earth. The hump of soil. The remnants of the fire. The ashes. The bones that did not burn. The memory of a woman who struggled her whole life just to breathe.

After a week, I saw something.

Seedlings. Thousands of them. About three inches tall. Sprouting all over the small hump of soil. The exact spot where she was cremated. The seeds of the flowers from the garlands and wreaths. They had burned along with her body. They had been scattered with her ashes. They had slept in the soil. Then they had woken.

They made a green carpet around her remains. Tiny leaves. Delicate stems. A thousand small lives rising from the place where one life had ended. It was beautiful. It was painful. I did not know what to feel.

I thought about my parents. One day, they will have the same fate. One day, they will be reduced to ashes. One day, someone will stand at a distance and watch the fire consume what was once their body. The thought pained me more than anything. More than the memory of my aunt. More than the seedlings. More than the strange grief of the kitchen utensils.

It was as if my aunt was resurrected. As saplings. To flower again. Not as a woman. Not as a principal. Not as an asthmatic who struggled to breathe. As something else. Something that would not suffer. Something that would not need medicine. Something that would just grow. And bloom. And spread fragrance. And then die again. And then grow again. The cycle continues. The cycle never ends.

I am always worried about death. Not my death. The death of others. Anyone close to me. I am paranoid about other people's death. I have read a million times that the body is temporary and the soul is eternal. That the soul has no birth and no death. It does not ring a bell for me. I know the theory intellectually. But I cannot digest it when I think about my dear ones dying.

I hate death.

I know all the theories. Recycling of elements. Energy transformation. The body becomes soil, becomes grass, becomes cow, becomes milk, becomes baby. I know the shit. But my heart hates death.

I do not care about my own death. Let it come. Let it take me. I am not afraid. But the death of others. That is different. That is unbearable. That is the thing that keeps me awake at night. The thought of losing someone. The thought of a world without their voice. Their presence. Their hands.

I wish everyone would live eternally. And only I should die.

Foolish. I know. My heart does not agree. What to do?