THURSDAY MORNING IN HOSUR

 4/27/22

In the early morning darkness, I hear the birds first and then the Imam’s call to prayer. Not very much later the sacred gives way to the mundane and crass—traffic roaring in the distance, the Hindu temple’s songs on loud speakers. 

Dawn breaks quickly, darkness making way for daylight in a matter of moments, and the lightness of the morning air calls me outside where Scamp is ready to play. Mum, after her devotions, will join us outside sweeping up the few leaves that have fallen on the path during the night. It’s her exercise she says. This is the magic of Hosur mornings.

Being with mum is like being in another world and when I reside here, all other worlds fade. It engages in a way that takes over everything else.  It’s the reason, I might not write, or call or remember how much I love you.

Mum’s my focus. We’ve done a couple jigsaw puzzles, played numerous Boggle games, taken our meals, while looking after small housekeeping chores. We laugh and joke and act “jalep”, and all the while, mum keeps up a steady flow of family stories, and anecdotes from her life. When she mentions something I don’t recall hearing before, I reach for my iPad to jot down a few words that I hope to flesh out later. 

Now more often than before, she mixes and matches events and dates that I know don’t go together. She’ll mention Aunty Ivy and her first GC in the same sentence, and Maggie in a story decades before she was a part of our family. And I’m thankful that I paid attention earlier and know most of the stories so well, that I know when she misstates facts, but also because when she falters for a name or place, and pauses with confusion on her face, that I can supply them to her, and watch her eyes light up at making the connection again.

Yesterday, mum tutored me in knitting baby booties. Having knitted dozens of pairs in her lifetime, she knows the pattern by memory and I have this unexplained desire to produce them as prolifically and effortlessly as she once did.

My stays are short, and my visits few and far apart, but as much as is in my control, I will find forever in each moment.

DEAR AUNTIES

 5/3/22

Saying goodbye to aging parents is difficult, and it seems like I’ve had to do this so many times already. My flight departs from Bangalore in exactly 12 hours—4:40 AM on Thursday.

Thankfully, mum is well and strong. She has a routine and believes in it—and this brings more comfort than you can imagine, because I know she will keep doing it for as long as she can. I can make a list of the things that she doesn’t do as well anymore, but that list is minuscule compared to the things that she continues to do well.

We are actively looking for the right person to be around her. The search can be disheartening but I hope this means the right person will come along at the right time.

Getting to know mum through her stories I’ve collected the last few years, has been a wonderful blessing for me. Understanding her through her history has forever softened my heart towards her, and I have forgiven her for the times I felt she was inadequate as a parent. 

She is not perfect. She has many complaints about some things, relishes her identity as a self-sacrificing person, and stubbornly insists her ways are the best. These imperfections are nothing and only serve to reinforce the fact that she is human and vulnerable, and like each of us is worthy of love and dignity. Looked at from this perspective, mum is nothing less than an amazing and precious 93 year old, who loves and gives generously in ways that are her own.

I hurt at the pain of separation that she will feel more acutely than I will . . . but she is in a safe comfortable place, and cared for thoughtfully by Gordon.

Your letters to her in the days immediately following my departure will bring her much joy … and help pass the hours as she transitions to her normal routine.

WHY DOTH THOU READ

 “I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? …we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us. That is my belief.”

- Franz Kafka

PARENTS

 

My heart squeezes tightly almost making me ill when I look at this picture of my parents. It's not a flattering image of them. Dad, then in his 90s had grown slow, his edema swollen slippered feet shuffled from bed to desk to dining table. His heart balking at the slightest exertion; blood flowing like thick molasses so he was always cold, so on warm days he'd sit outside and soak up the warmth. Mum, still strong but often weary.

Story Material

I remember when I was in Toronto I would give money to every panhandler, busker and street bum. I would allow my windshield to be wiped at red lights and smile and tip them well. I once paid a young man asking for a smoke $10 to collect cigarette butts for me for an art project I had in mind. 

I befriended a number of regular buskers on metro stations to and from work. Benny was from Mexico and always wore a hat. He sang Spanish songs and accompanied himself on a guitar. Oh, he made me so homesick for New Mexico. Mel was from Nova Scotia and wrote his own songs. Sam usually played late. I loved the jazz melodies he played on his saxophone. He said he had played for some of the greats in New Orleans back in the day. I bought their CDs. Brian was a great crooner. His voice would greet us as we came up the escalator from the bottom platform at the Sherbourne Station where I got off. I treated him to lunch one day. Another time we went to the Ex together. And once he cooked dinner for me in his very modest apartment. I ate the potatoes as the other dish was non-veg. 

I was lonely and restless and found that individuals on the outskirts of society were least likely to be judgmental and accepted me for who I was at that moment in time.

The vision of Raphael would fill my eyes and I hoped someone somewhere was kind and generous to him as he roamed and wandered the streets of whatever town he was in for I never knew from day to day or from week to week where he was or where he rested his head.

When I joined him two years later, he was sleeping on the floor in an apartment he was renting. His night stand was made of FedEx boxes.

Now we live a normal life. We have furniture and linen in the closet. Dishes for everyday and for special occasions, but there is nothing to write about.

Leave Me to Me

In a New York Times opinion piece by David Brooks, “Biden said that his dad once showed him an image of the comic strip Viking, Hagar the Horrible, getting hammered by life and screaming out, “Why Me?!” God answers, “Why Not?”

I can smile at this scenario today but there were times when I have absolutely cried out in desperation, "Why me?" There was never any answer, just silence, which is the same as "Why not?" I’ve discovered that life's trials are never personal and we suffer them indiscriminately. There is no fairness, no balance, no bias in our favor. The trick then to overcoming them is my own response, my attitude, my perspective. And this is exactly how it should be. I would want no one else to be in charge of my fate -- only myself. Leave me to me.

RELIGION AND DIVORCE

For many years I was deeply wounded that my parents didn’t give me any emotional support when I decided to leave my first husband. At a time when I needed desperately to be affirmed for who I was--an adult woman who was best situated to make decisions for myself, dad appeared patronizing in his treatment of me, believing I had made a mistake in leaving my marriage because they were for reasons other than the ones approved by the Church. 

“He’s not chasing other women, not beating you,” dad said implying that other reasons should be worked out.

I felt like a child being reprimanded for making a bad decision, when in fact, I had been married for 22 years, had held various responsible positions in Church employment, and had raised two children.

On another occasion dad bemoaned the fact that all his sisters’ children, who were not even Christians, had stable marriages while two of his children’s marriages had failed. It seemed to me he though it a poor reflection on his public image.

He did not approve of my relationship with my second husband to be. In an email to me he asserted that our relationship was guaranteed to be a failure because it was not founded on Jesus and Christian principles.

Perhaps feeling conflicted Mum showed two different sides. She was united with dad in disapproving of my decision; however, she once repeated to me in a conspiratorial way a remark made to her by one of my girlfriends who was happy for me, “Lorna is so lucky.” I felt that mum was trying to convey at some level that she sympathized with me. However, in 20 years she has not once tried to have a conversation with me about it.

My oldest brother was openly supportive of me, but he had already been through a divorce and had left the church. I didn’t feel any judgment from my other two brothers, they were supportive but mostly silent. My sister was straightforward in expressing her disapproval. As Christmas approached, she regretted that she could not send a card addressed to my partner and me as we were cohabiting. Ironically, that same Christmas we received a card from mum addressed to both Raphael and me.

Another time, my sister said as long as my partner and I were not married, she could not visit us as that would indicate she condoned our behavior while clearly she did not. She likened it to viewing an object she knew was stolen—that it would somehow implicate her.

Realizing that it was an error to expect my parents (and others) to behave in a way I wished or expected, allowed me to stop pining for the affirmation I wanted, to love and accept them on their own terms, and to heal from the hurt of rejection. I have a better understanding of why some could not accept my decisions, perhaps believing that supporting me might betray their convictions. In the same way that I wish to be true to myself, each one must also have that right.

I have concluded that religion was the reason that prevented some of my family from being loving and supportive of me. That some Christians (rightly or wrongly) confuse "accepting" with "condoning;” that the admonishment to “call sin by its right name” does not serve Christians well as it gives a reason to be judgmental and creates obstacles to accepting and loving someone else whose lifestyle does not match their own.

The SDA Church’s position on divorce is archaic and demonstrates neither understanding nor compassion--and which is my primary reason for leaving the Church. It denies individuals the right to seek relationships that are meaningful and loving.

The choices I made for myself had a ripple effect which touched other lives and I regret the hurt it caused. And while the events I write about are in the past, I look to the day when we will be able to love each other freely—without judgment, without feeling guilty that we might be condoning another’s choice or lifestyle, and without fear we might be implicated by association. 

I share my experience: wishing it helps someone else in the family; believing that talking about things builds deeper understanding and closer bonds; and hoping that were someone else to go through a failed marriage, family will be the first to embrace and uphold that individual.