On funerals and friends
I have to go to a funeral today.
How can I ever forget the first one I attended? My grandmom died and the months leading upto it were life changing for me. To see her reduced to helplessness physically was the easy part. It was her struggle to show love for my father who she had systematically hurt and scorned all his life, that stayed with me. He took care of her lovingly, with no thought of physical or financial consequence and my mom was with him in all those moments.
Not sure why I felt so angry about all this, I remember waiting in the hospital for the documents. There was this very handsome monk, also waiting in the the same room for some other documents. What would we learn without the bureaucracy of life? He was one of the most attractive men I have ever met in my life and he was quite unperturbed by the long wait, unlike me. At some point we got talking and naturally we talked about death , which is why we were there. His youth, looks and intelligence seemed very attractive to me at 18, which is how old I was, and I had to ask him what he was doing in monk clothes at such a young age. ( I am shamed of my irreverence now but kind of glad at what happened next)
He told me how he became a monk.
His best friend and cousin got into an accident with his wife, (who was a very beautiful and talented young woman he had fallen in love with), and while she escaped unscathed, he was paralysed for life. They had only been married a few months. He talked to her and asked her to go ahead with her life. She would not hear of it, totally engulfed in grief and took care of him night and day. It pained him more to see her in pain than to think about his life cut short but not quite yet. After two years of taking care of him night and day, even he grew used to her loving presence and began to think of it as his right. In time she grew bitter about her life, and all her love started draining away, leaving a coldness behind, which was much more painful than anything he had gone through. The monk said he was witness to all this and it caused him grief to see human frailty for which noone could be blamed. He said sometimes its easier to blame than to empathise. I think I now know what that meant. She slowly fell in love with someone else, and got involved, and all this was hidden from the guy. Her deception made her angry and guilty and her cruelty to him grew day by day. He said the guy died finally, setting all of them free from this absolutely harrowing experience. All this made him think about what he was living towards, a job, love, success, and it all seemed meaningless and he decided to find another path to ask these questions and here he was, a monk, waiting for another monk’s papers.
We talked for several hours, and he talked to me about my feelings regarding my grandmom’s death and he asked me for my address, saying he would write to me if it was OK. He sent me postcards for several years and I wrote back too, probably not contributing as much as he contributed to my growth.
I still wonder whether his journey took him closer to the meaning of life. I am still living mine.
How can I ever forget the first one I attended? My grandmom died and the months leading upto it were life changing for me. To see her reduced to helplessness physically was the easy part. It was her struggle to show love for my father who she had systematically hurt and scorned all his life, that stayed with me. He took care of her lovingly, with no thought of physical or financial consequence and my mom was with him in all those moments.
Not sure why I felt so angry about all this, I remember waiting in the hospital for the documents. There was this very handsome monk, also waiting in the the same room for some other documents. What would we learn without the bureaucracy of life? He was one of the most attractive men I have ever met in my life and he was quite unperturbed by the long wait, unlike me. At some point we got talking and naturally we talked about death , which is why we were there. His youth, looks and intelligence seemed very attractive to me at 18, which is how old I was, and I had to ask him what he was doing in monk clothes at such a young age. ( I am shamed of my irreverence now but kind of glad at what happened next)
He told me how he became a monk.
His best friend and cousin got into an accident with his wife, (who was a very beautiful and talented young woman he had fallen in love with), and while she escaped unscathed, he was paralysed for life. They had only been married a few months. He talked to her and asked her to go ahead with her life. She would not hear of it, totally engulfed in grief and took care of him night and day. It pained him more to see her in pain than to think about his life cut short but not quite yet. After two years of taking care of him night and day, even he grew used to her loving presence and began to think of it as his right. In time she grew bitter about her life, and all her love started draining away, leaving a coldness behind, which was much more painful than anything he had gone through. The monk said he was witness to all this and it caused him grief to see human frailty for which noone could be blamed. He said sometimes its easier to blame than to empathise. I think I now know what that meant. She slowly fell in love with someone else, and got involved, and all this was hidden from the guy. Her deception made her angry and guilty and her cruelty to him grew day by day. He said the guy died finally, setting all of them free from this absolutely harrowing experience. All this made him think about what he was living towards, a job, love, success, and it all seemed meaningless and he decided to find another path to ask these questions and here he was, a monk, waiting for another monk’s papers.
We talked for several hours, and he talked to me about my feelings regarding my grandmom’s death and he asked me for my address, saying he would write to me if it was OK. He sent me postcards for several years and I wrote back too, probably not contributing as much as he contributed to my growth.
I still wonder whether his journey took him closer to the meaning of life. I am still living mine.
posted by Sumita | 8:43 AM
1 Comments:
Reminds me of the saying, road is everything, the end is nothing.
Mona.
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