July 28th, 2010. On Loss and coming to terms

Very soon, it will be 6 months since Sanjay died. It still doesn't register fully in my mind that he's gone because I still think that he's here. August will be a hard month. It is his birth month, the month his brother, Subhas, died and 12 years since all of us came to the US. In fact, the only thing I ever really associated August with was Sanjay's birthday. I miss him a lot. I find myself skipping over songs that he used to like or songs that I listened to at various times during his illness. In fact, the only thing from that time that I can listen to is the Hanuman Chalisa. The pictures are hard to look at. I am afraid to call his mom and sister because I don't know what to say to them nor do I want to visit the house. Things come and go now. I remember little things and they all make sense now. There were so many things I overlooked when he was sick.
Five months...that is what it took for him to really deteriorate. How I wish that he didn't have to lie in bed for those five months! He was so strong! Even when i visited him in the few days before he died, it didn't register in my mind that he was so sick. I felt the tumors on his sides, and even thought they would go away.
Deep down, I know things will be better. One day. It seems as if the family took a good shaking. Every now and again, we get a good one but this one hit hard.
I'll continue this blog....or maybe not.......

drawing analogies or parallels

It seems as if only the chosen few have stuck with blogging. Life came up and all of a sudden everyone got busy. I am not too certain where I am at right now. Somewhere in my mind, I know my cousin died and I am not sure if it is a natural defense mechanism but I am trying to not allow myself to think at all about him during the day. The nights are different though.
Two days ago, I sat on the floor in the mandir chanting the Hanuman Chalisa trying to get to the 108th chalisa in celebration of Hanuman Jayanti. I remembered sitting on the floor in his room doing the same thing not too long ago. See, in order to finish the 108 chalisas, we chant really quickly and I was leading the group for quite some time. This time, every chalisa I sang brought back memories of my cousin. He used to love Lord Hanuman. I thought of the night on the floor in his room when he could barely talk because his lungs were no longer holding the air and he would mouth the words of the prayer. Sometimes, he would fall asleep during the prayers and when I looked at him, he would be smiling at something in the sleep.  Back then, I really focused on the couplet, "nasai rog harai sab peera, japat nirantar hanumat beera." On the morning I left, the day before he died, he was finally asleep after a long night. I couldn't wake him so I stood at his bedside and I prayed to Mahaveer asking Him to take away the pain. I kissed him on his head and said a prayer over and over. In many ways, the pain and disease as well as the suffering all all gone. Completely. Along with him. It will be two months soon.

Taking time to make time

October 19, 2008: Lately, it's been a rather difficult thing staying happy when people around you have been suffering.

October 20th, 2009:

I've just read the above statement and realized that maybe I grew up a little more over the past year and one day. I remember when I wrote the above sentence and of what I was thinking when I did.
Last June, six months into my marriage and a mere two months after a second cousin who I had cared for as a baby died, I got the news that the cousin closest to me, very much like my brother, had been diagnosed with a very rare but aggressive cancer. At the time when I wrote the sentence, he was very sick because he had gotten the flu after the chemo had weakened his immune system and he was hospitalized. I remember then, the fear I had of losing him.
One year later, sadly, the news are no better and once again, he is tethering on the edge while we all hope for a miracle. For a short time, we thought that he had been cured only to find out that the cancer still thrived in him. I cannot truly begin to sort the range of emotions, very human emotions, I have felt or have been feeling but I am aware of them and observing them. Somehow, somewhere, I learned how to be an onlooker to my own self. I have learned to be happy even while staring misery in the face. Life isn't bad when you see it with the eyes of a student. There is always something to learn and some lessons are learned harder than others and leave a much larger impression.
So no, I no longer think I am fearful of losing him but I am aware of his constant, incessant pain and I pray more than ever that the pain stops.


PS....I cannot remember why I named the blog as I did but nevertheless, the title stays.

The Memorial Stone

In the north campus of Broward Community College, between the science and admissions building, there is a section of landscaping that has become part of what that little school is. Three years ago, there was a small tree planted there. the tree was not durable enough and died so in place, there was a series of concentric circles placed around a stone that bore the name "Darshit Patel" in English letters and in his native Gujrati letters. After tutoring on Saturday, i walked from the library towards the bookstore in BCC. on my way to the bookstore, i saw the admissions building where the clubs used to be. I remembered going in there for our meetings with our very own Desi SPICE club. Well the club dissolved and it seems as if everything around those two years pretty much dissolved. There is a bunch of people who went to school at that time who are only connected by the memories of Darsh. at times, we even forget that many of us got our associates degrees in the same year. whenever we meet, we know that we are only friends because Darsh was our friend and we all feel as if he was just as close to us as he was to the other. I looked at the stone and i thought to myself that the school, being a two-year college, will not have the students that were there three years ago. therefore, the new bunch of students will pass this stone everyday and not know the face that went along with this name. they will never know that a smile was such a valuable thing especially when it came from the face of Darsh. a smile on darsh started at his lips and it lit his whole face up. he was always so happy. these students in the school will never know why it was so necessary to have that stone placed there. many of us, especially the members of the various clubs at the time, were joined like family. when Darsh died, we felt it as if we had lost a member of our little family. I remember the fun times we had in those cubicles....trying to finish up some last minute homework and still partying at the same time with the other club members. having that stone there is very much like having a tombstone without a body buried below. it reminds us that Darsh's presence once lighted up our lives and even after he is gone, the stone still reminds us of his very contagious smile. i think of it and even now, i smile. the attached picture was the picture taken of him by his friends in the International Club. it was the picture used for his funeral and the one that reminded us the most of him and how he always looked.

Mamoo Balack, Roses and superstitions...

I have not felt like typing lately but however, i have written 8 pages to myself. Handwritten. Maybe it is because i did not feel like sharing what I was thinking to everyone back then...who knows? Usually, in my handwritten diary, i will review my year and then make changes for the new year based on how the past year went. This is what it was like...there were lots of laughter and equally as many tears.
Sometimes you know that something will happen but you do not expect it and when it does, you are surprised by it. this is how i felt when i heard the news about Mamoo Balak's death. He was sick but we never thought that he would die on Christmas day. so all the laughter turned to tears in the blink of an eye. I think the saddest thing was seeing mummy cry for her brother. She has that effect on people. We are so used to seeing her happy that when she cries, everyone cries as well. We did not know him but from the way she spoke of him, we learnt to love him through her. She adored her brother. Deep down we know that he is better off now but the void of losing a member of the family is still very fresh in our minds.
The Christmas tree is down and all the decorations are off earlier than usual. The house is not exactly one of mourning because it is in our nature not to mourn but to celebrate the life that the person lived. Even as the christmas decorations are off, the roses in the front are still blooming on a daily basis and they make the house look festive. It seems as if the roses are blooming for him. At least i would like to think so. Mummy said that when her father died, they got roses like that.
There is a superstition amongst our people about roses in the front of your house. They say that flowers with thorns are not good to be planted in the front of a house and one should not use them in worship. ask me if i believe it! nan had bought those roses as a birthday present for me earlier this year. I did not think twice about having them planted in the front of the house. a rose's beauty is meant to be shown off, not hidden. I guess we are not as superstitious. Daddy was using them to decorate the altar because for the first time, we had so many roses.
As for the superstition, they are the most beautiful flowers, and probably the hardest to grow and maintain. anyone who has ever tried to grow a rose from a baby plant will know that. of course, they can be used to describe life...the delicate nature, their beauty, their grace, their thorns, the insects that can plague them if not cared for, how they wither, dropping of their petals and the remains of their core when the beauty of their petals is shed. to me, having them bloom was an accomplishment because we cared for them so much. After the hurricane, i put fertilizer and miracle gro on them and even sprayed them to prevent insects from attacking them. And yes, the roses bloomed to celebrate the life that my uncle lived. they were a tribute to him.

Coming to terms: Remembering Darshit Patel (July 12, 1982-July 13, 2003)

I was reading online today about traffic rules in florida and about drinking and driving and whatever else there was to read. there was good information on the effects of drugs on the brain. of course, the main focus was alcohol but every now and then, my mind drifted to someone. darsh. i miss him. he was a friend that would make you laugh by just seeing him. he was always happy. i remember when i found out that he was dead how it took days to sink in that darsh would not be there with his funny gujrati accent and his hilarious remarks. the thing is darsh died in an accident and when i went to his funeral, the person in the coffin did not resemble darsh....it did not even look close to what he looked like. the smile was fake. anyone who knew darsh would know that. his smile was the first thing everyone noticed about him. it was contagious. even people who claimed to not like him, missed him when he was gone....and in his death, he pulled the entire feuding club community at our college together.
i often meet vishal and we talk about darsh. it pains us to speak of him because darsh was vishal's best friend...and to me, darsh was one of the persons who i looked for in school because he would always do something to make you laugh. all through the readings..my mind wavered to darsh...when he was alive, when i heard the news that he died, and when i went to his funeral...
he was only 21 and everyone who knew him went to his birthday party. we were vacationing with family in jupiter, florida that weekend. when we came back, there was a message on the phone from a club member that we were at odds with and she said that darsh was dead. darsh died the morning after his 21st birthday in a head on collision with a post on the florida turnpike. after seeing him at the funeral, i can never really tell vishal (because i know it would affect him) but i am afraid of being on a major highway...especially at night. i know that he fell asleep at the wheel. he was always tired. that was one thing that he always complained of...never getting enough sleep.
it took me a year and a half later to realize that darsh didnt look like darsh because the people at the funeral home had to remake his face. he looked like a burn victim in the coffin. his color was pasty and it seemed as if he had taken the darshness out of the body that laid there. the animating principle was gone...his soul was already gone. he wasnt wearing his seatbelt when he crashed and he was thrown through the windscreen of the van onto the post. his head hit first. i am not saying this to say anything bad about darsh but from the frankness of the observation. his shoe was on the side of the road and his cell phone was in pieces in the picture. the only comforting thing was that he died on impact.
the monday before he died, we were discussing our plans for later on in life. darsh was different that day. he told me his entire life story and about his life at his uncle's house. he was in love with this girl in miami and he wanted to go to a public university there so he could be closer to her. i remember how nan and i used to tease him about going to see her. he told me that his uncle was very mean to him at times and he had a very rough life at his house. there was something he told me that stood out. almost at the end of our conversation, he told me that if he wanted to leave, everything he ever owned was packed in one little bag in a corner of the room he stayed in and all he had to do was take the bag. all the while, he kept smiling...as if to say that he had overcome his problems and they were only just memories.
i know that he didnt live a long life like many others but his life touched everyone he met. we have a little rock at the college with his name on it and there are some flowers planted around it. it is close to where everyone would hang out and talk to him if we saw him in school and right outside the room we held his memorial service in. sometimes i dont like going back there because the memories come back...but at times, there is great solace in going and looking at this rock with his name on it.
i cannot really understand why i will think of darsh now...lately my mind has been on him. i think i was affected more than i thought and i know that i miss him. i didnt see him much but his presence was greatly appreciated when i did see him. i remember when i first entered FAU, i used to ask the desis if they knew darsh. the other day, i passed the funeral home where we did his service and i thought of him. maybe he sees us all...and he laughs the same way at all of us. the westerners have a philosophy that there are angels that god sends to walk amongst us and cheer us up...and if so, darsh was one of them.