Walking each other home
Don’t worry, sooner or later I’ll be home.
Red-cheeked from the roused wind,
I’ll stand in the doorway
stamping my boots and slapping my hands
my shoulders covered with stars.~ Mary Oliver
“Sooner or later, she’ll be home.”
When Moy Moy left us in July – so suddenly, with so little warning – we comforted ourselves and each other in all the usual meaningless ways: She’s gone to a better place. Her work here was finished. We were lucky to have her for as long as we did.
All meaningless in the face of our sadness and our wild, reckless grief, but all, also, deeply true.
She is in a better place. Whatever certainty I once had about life after death is gone. Losing a child robs you of certainties of any kind. I have no idea where she is now. No idea. But one thing I do know: Moy Moy was ready to go. She had been withdrawing from us for some years, slowly preparing us for her final and inevitable departure. Her body was stiff and hard to move around in: everything was an effort and the natural processes we all take for granted no longer worked reliably for her. Though she never complained and seldom even let us know what she was feeling, it could not have been easy. We were helpless in the face of all that was difficult for her and it was painful for us too. She is free of all that now and we would be mean indeed to begrudge her the release she has won.
Her work here was finished. There were times when we felt we might be projecting purpose on Moy Moy’s life just because we needed to see it there; that we wanted to create sense and order out of something which was in fact random and meaningless and so we just made things up. We gave her the credit for our hard work so as to make it mystical and ordained. We made her a saint so that others would believe. We gave her cult status to sanctify our own devotion to her. But with her death, and the outpouring of love and grief and stories of her influence from all over the world, I have come to believe that the mission we imagined for her was in fact genuine, that all she achieved through her short life was indeed astonishing, and that what she has inspired us to do is truly nothing less than a miracle.
We were lucky to have her for as long as we did. When Moy Moy was nine, our pediatrician told us she probably had only months left to live. After those early breathless weeks, when we lurched through life in a waking nightmare, unable to plan beyond the next ten minutes, every day was a bonus, a prize, an unexpected gift of joy, love and possibility. We never lost that sense of wonder and surprise. Our luck was indisputable. We were the chosen ones. We got to be her family, her friends, her trusted army. We got her in the first place (oh my goodness, how lucky!) and we kept her for decades longer than they told us we could.
This year’s calendar is a celebration of Moy Moy – an acknowledgement of all that she is to us, all that she inspired us to become and all that she insists we continue. She knows we can do it. She’s watching us right now. She’s standing in the doorway, stamping her boots and slapping her hands. Her shoulders – God bless her – are covered with stars.
– Jo Chopra
The 2019 calendar was designed by Shalini Sinha and printed at Thomson Press, Faridabad. The photographers – Manik Mandal, Ken Carl, Terri Moyer, Ravi Chopra and Jo Chopra – all generously donated their services. Inset photos of young Moy courtesy the Chopra-McGowan collection. Special thanks to Anand for flights, hotels and all things logistical; to Cathleen for editing, advice and Barry’s tea and to the choirs of angels who upheld Moy Moy in this life and the next. All donations go to support the Latika Roy Foundation’s vision of a better world for children with disabilities.
