By
In Jo's Blog

Two weeks ago, I saw a picture of Nicholas and another man on facebook. Underneath the photo were two comments: “RIP.” and “My deepest condolences.”

Wow, I thought. His friend looks so young. I wonder what happened. It simply didn’t occur to me that the comments could have anything to do with Nick himself.

At around ten the next night, I got an email from Nicholas’ sister, Paris, breaking the news in a few short lines which left me gasping for air. Nicholas was dead. Age 51. A heart attack while sailing with some of his closest friends. I RACED out of the room to find Ravi. Maybe he could make it not be true.

A few hours later, I heard from his wife, Maya. He was on the ocean, she wrote – with his best childhood buddies, doing what he loves on a perfect beautiful day.  He didn’t suffer at all.  It was sudden and immediate.

Family Photo: Smiling mother, father, son and daughter

And just like that, the world stopped spinning on its axis.

All that next day, I walked as if in a daze, stunned and numb. I would forget for a moment, then remember it again. Each recollection was like touching a raw wound. But now, two weeks later, I have thought about it and remembered it and re-lived it so many times, I am beginning to believe – so much against my will – that it might actually be true.

And I can only imagine what it must be like for Maya, Leland and Manali.

I met Nicholas for the first time when he and Maya came to India after their wedding. She was a friend of a friend of my sister’s and had stayed with us off and on for six months some years earlier when she made her first solo visit to her ancestral land (she is Indian, but grew up in America).

By the time she came back to introduce her new husband to her old country, we had three children. We had moved to Dehradun and I still remember that visit as an idyllic, magical time. We loved Maya so much and it was essential that she find the right man, the perfect husband. The moment we met Nicholas and watched the way he played with our kids and the way he was so enchanted by Maya we knew she had found her fairytale ending: he was IT.

Over the years, we stayed in close touch. Visits whenever I made it back to the US. Letters. Christmas cards. Photos exchanged. Emails.

In 2003, the Rege-Colts came to India. For a whole year. Leland was only 8, Manali was 5.

Hang on a second. Who does this? Who uproots their children, withdraws them from school and transports them to India? Who values the potential of the gamble enough to take the chance? Who scrimps and saves for years to make it possible?

Nicholas and Maya did that. And the Latika Roy Foundation was the beneficiary. They spent their India year with US.

Maya took on the music, dance and drama programs at both Latika Vihar and Karuna Vihar. Nick, who was a gifted carpenter, set up a workshop at our friend Dr Kalhan’s place in town. There he created an amazing range of beautiful furniture for the Foundation – a water/sand table for indoor play; a special corner chair for one of our kids with CP who needed support to sit erect, bookshelves, an indoor slide with a built-in tunnel, a dolls’ house: all our dreams came true in his hands.

But it wasn’t about the things they did or the stuff he built. It was about the way they chose to live their lives, the things they valued, the way they spent their days.

Nick noticed everything. He had a craftsman’s eye for small details and he knew that it was the little things which made the difference; the difference between – say – a bed from IKEA and a bed for Bill Gates (he actually built that one).

Bill Gates paid a lot of money for the bed that Nicholas made for him. It wasn’t the wood, Nicholas explained to me. It wasn’t the design. What Bill Gates paid for was Nick’s time.

And that’s what Nicholas understood better than almost anyone I have ever known. The most important thing we have to give – ever –  is ourselves. It’s our time, our attention, our unfailing love.

American man and woman, smilingWhen he was here in India, I picked him up one day at Dr Kalhan’s workshop and we drove across town together, to our homes. Traffic is crazy in Dehradun and most of my attention was on the road and the erratic, insane and risk-loving drivers we were sharing the road with. But still, Nicholas and I had some conversation.

We talked about our families, about our dreams, about what mattered. He told me how important this year was to him and to Maya; how they hoped that by checking out of the American Rat Race, they might let their kids know that there was more to life than increasing its speed; how they believed that spending time together was the most valuable gift they could ever give each other . He told me he could hardly believe how lucky he was as a father and as a husband . . . and that being able to spend a whole year with his family – away from the demands of a consumer society, the multiple distractions, the shopping – was the greatest gift he had ever received.

Indian woman and American man - both smiling!

Nicholas wasn’t a big talker. But he had dreams, and they were huge. They were larger than life and they were founded on real things – like wood and nails and plans drawn out in pencil and based on the flesh and blood needs of the people he was building them for.

The people he was building them for.

Years later, explaining what he did while in India, he wrote:

I was able to make furniture that fit the special needs of the children I made it for. Nothing I have built before or after my time in Dehradun has been as rewarding as what I did there.

Bill Gates might or might not understand. Because a beautiful, hand-crafted bed is one thing. A life of purpose is quite another. One takes craftmanship and skill. The other requires time, patience and the willingness to sacrifice everything for the dream.

Nicholas – how lucky for all of us! – had both: The skill and the devotion. The craft and the time. I salute him for his life; for the unstinting love he had for his family and the deep joy he found in their company; for the courage he had to resist the pull of all that is empty and meaningless. I bless his name and give thanks that I knew him in this life.

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Showing 2 comments
  • Sheryl
    Reply

    how beautifully you have related the story of a dear one. by the end of it i felt for a second that i know this man. He has already done the good works to rest in peace. May God bless his family.

pingbacks / trackbacks
  • […] with many more who were not so close, but every bit as real. Two I have already written about: Nicholas, who died pure and glorious and much too young; Joan, who could never live long enough to satisfy […]

Leave a Comment