More on Family
I haven’t quite finished with all the stories about my family and Mom’s death. A friend of mine – Karen Brandow – also lost her mother recently. In the eulogy, she included this story, which her mother had asked to have read at her funeral: “I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my […]
Avinash Pasricha
And here’s the man himself, with Pinky again. I don’t know how or why we got so lucky. Avinash is truly one of the best photographers in India and he acts like it is a privilege to come and work with us for the Karuna Vihar calendar every year. This time, I watched him like […]
Back to Fall River
Being at home with Dad this month has meant many trips down memory lane – some metaphorical, some actual. We went to Fall River several times – where both of us were born, though he lived there for over 70 years and I left at 21. I loved the city, though much of that is […]
Our Emerald
Mary seems to defy nature – she grows more beautiful every time I see her. At Mom’s funeral, her eyes shone with tears and with love and all of us felt so lucky that she had been there throughout, overseeing every detail of Mom’s care and making sure that she was comfortable and pain-free till […]
Lucy, Our Jewel in the Crown
I have already written about all that Lucy did for Mom while she was alive. Here’s what a friend of hers told her about what Mom is going to do for her: Lucy, I was very sorry to hear about your mother’s passing. I know she was a wonderful lady and that you loved her […]
Flowers
My friend Imrana called from Delhi to say how sorry she was about Mom. During the conversation, she asked me to put a flower on her grave from her. I told her we weren’t doing flowers. That we had asked people to send contributions to Karuna Vihar instead. “Oh, Jo,” she said. “We always need […]
The Funeral
What a final thing the funeral is. We can no longer avoid the stark reality of death, the glaring fact that the person who was once our life, our sweetness and our hope, is no longer among us. For me, the rituals were incredibly helpful. The prayers, the actions, the symbolic ways in which we marked […]
The Wake
Wakes are hard. There is the person you love so much, lying in a coffin, and here is this whole line of people filing by solemnly, tears in their eyes, groping for the right words to say, wishing they could take your sorrow away but knowing there is no way that will happen. Mom’s wake […]
Jay Buys His Aunt a Dress
My cousin Jay is one of my favorite people, and in spite of our meeting only once in ten years, we have a deep connection. He is a Little Brother of Charles de Foucauld, an order whose members take vows of lifelong poverty and whose work is to live among the poor, living and working […]
And from Cathleen . . .
Visiting Grandma and Grandpa was always one of my favorite things to do when we’d come to the US for summer vacation- we would have “serious” discussions , take a tour of the old battleship in Fall River and then settle down with a nice cup of tea.I remember the times when I was little […]