For the past twenty years, you’ve been the bane of my existence.
I slept with the phone by the bedside, never knowing when Mummy would call, and one of us would have to come find you, and dig you out of the newest hole you dug for yourself. And none of those years have been harder, than the one where we were estranged for the past year. Two decades of picking up after you had taken their toll.

I told you repeatedly over the years, that while all was always forgiven, it was hard for me to forget. Especially since I lived amidst the wreckage of your actions.
In fits of frustration, I would wail to Abby or Mummy, “Why doesn’t this boy understand?”

Until you decided to move on.

You were always my boy.
I taught you to walk.
I made you laugh.
I taught you cricket. I outgrew it, but it was a lifelong passion with you.

With the exception of your weakness, you were the best of us.
You outsang us in choir, even as a three year old.
You probably were the only person who I’d say was more generous than Daddy was. (to the extent of people taking advantage of your gullibility so many times.)
You had the most joie-de-vivre. You made us laugh.
You were sensitive and kind. Nobody who met you, would come away unhappy or sad.
And for all your foibles, I believe that you loved Mummy and Daddy the most. I might be responsible, Derrick might be caring, but you had the biggest heart.

You gave me your love for animals.
You saved Puppy, by making sure she lived as a puppy.
You jumped into that large stinking drain and pulled her out later, when she got stuck. Foxy, Puppy, Little Puppy, Two Socks, Pink Nose or Popsicle would not be here, if it wasn’t for you.

I might have been the straitlaced one, and you and Derrick have a bond, that is actually brotherly, but both of you had no problems defending an older brother who took life too seriously.
You believed in me blindly. You believed I could be wrong a hundred ways to Sunday, but I would never wrong you intentionally.

So I choose to remember everything that was good about you.
Derrick told me, your last words to him were, “Good, you came.”
I want to imagine you only held on, until you felt like you were back home.
And now that you’re with Daddy, I hope to see you one day, and I hope you tell me, “Good, you came” too.
You will always be my boy.
I love you.

I lost my Mai today.

Until my mid 30s, I rued the gulf that stood between Mai and me.
While my parents insistence on teaching us English, as our primary language has benefited me immensely, in most everything I do, the one thing that I feel sad about is that I speak my mother tongue (Konkani) in a slow halting manner. ¹
Which meant that I never could talk well with my grandmother.
I am one of her oldest grandchildren, and I never got to have heart to heart conversations with her, the way my other cousins did.
And yet …

My earliest memories are full of her.
Mai means mother. Odli Mai (Big Mother) is grandmother.
But to a young me, Mummy was Mother and Mai was grandmother.
Born as I was, to a young girl in her early twenties, what I got from mummy was fierce love and passionate discipline.
What Mai gave me was gentle love and wisdom.
What Mai gave me was a patient ear.
I could talk a mile a minute, and Mai understood nothing of my English gibberish.
She’d just make coo noises and hug me (and then figure out what it was that I just blabbed, from Mummy.)

I know nothing of her childhood or youth.
I know nothing of what she was as a wife and the mistress of the farm, eking a hard existence from the land.
I only know snippets of her, as a mom of a large brood of nine children.
The only thing I know, is that she was my Mai.
And that she loved me as no one else ever could.

I wish I could have kept the shirt, made out the cloth she stole and sneaked into my arms when no one was looking. All because I thought every other godmother gave their god children gifts and mine ought to, too! ²
I wish I could have kept a seed out of all the fruits she plucked for me, from the trees on the farm. (I was too busy sucking on mangoes, and then handing the seeds over to her to throw, while she laughed and howled at me ‘Paara pathlyaan dhaanv’ (Run after that seed)).
I wish I had seen her more, as I began working, as we both grew older.
And yet …

Maybe we did not need language.
She is the reason, I got over my fear of dogs (and other animals).
She is the reason, I still crazily love the outdoors and communing with nature.
She is the reason, I took to stoicism to help me through the storms of life. She was stoicism in action, my modern day Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus all rolled into one.
She is the reason, along with daddy, that I love practicing irrational generosity.

Maybe that is her legacy to me.
I carry her with me.
In my bones, in my marrow.
In my words and deeds.
And just like Shelley never let Keats die, I know, I carry my ancestors with me.
As long I remember them and celebrate their words and deeds, they live.
My father is here.
My nana is here.
Mai is here!

Because her touch and her actions spoke more than language ever could.
To me, Mai means mother or godmother or big mother and grandmother.
Or maybe Mai could just mean a big old heart, full of love.

Abby lost her grandmother this week.
This is her eulogy to her.

She was Aunty Matty to other people, mummy to her children and countless other fond names to who knew her.

But she was my Nana.

I have memories of her cradling me, and taking care of me as a baby.
Vacations at Nana’s were the highlight of my childhood years.
She was a tireless, hard working woman who raised her large family to the best of her abilities.
And not just her family, but also (to me it seemed) the whole neighbourhood.
She was loved and appreciated, just by about everyone whose life she touched.

As the years flew by, Nana seemed very out of place.
In our fast paced, always connected, no time for any one age, Nana was a slow, deliberate, thoughtful, kind, gentle and gracious woman, like someone from a different, more altruistic age.

And it was here in her shadow years, while i was grew up and was beginning to work and could make my own trips to see her, that i really began to see her for the strong willed, tireless, hard working that she was, beyond just my nana who cossetted me and made me nice things.

And after all these years, the only theme i see that has rung true throughout Nana’s life was, Nana was there.

• when i was a young bawling baby, Nana was there.
• throughout my growing up years, Nana was there.
• to cook me what my heart desired, Nana was there.
• for everyone in her life, Nana was there.
• to crack jokes and lighten up any room, Nana was there.
• to empathise and have a compassionate ear to whatever was ailing you, Nana was there.
• to gently, yet firmly correct you, Nana was there.
• to remember you on your birthdays and anniversaries, Nana was there.
• to worry about you and pick you up when you were down, Nana was there.

Since the day before, when Nana left us, I feel distraught and left alone, that Nana wasn’t there.
And yet, as i read this little note, i realise that this is not quite true.
Like the Little Prince tells the author,

I cannot carry this body with me. It is too heavy.
But it will be like an old abandoned shell.
There is nothing sad about old shells …

Nana was in pain, and she moved on beyond her body to her rest.
But that does not mean, she isn’t there anymore.
I will always carry Nana with me.
We all do.
Nana is here.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

— via Austin Kleon’s touching eulogy to Mary Oliver.

P.S. Also love her instructions for living a life.

• Pay attention.
• Be astonished.
• Tell about it.

P.P.S If you enjoy reading what I write and share, go subscribe.

Dad was what Brett McKay calls, both a good man and good at being a man.

I could write reams about my father, but I wouldn’t know where to start.

He gave me life and then has been my sustenance ever since.
He’s the source of everything that’s good in me.

His deep baritone, echoed in our fledgling church as we sung hymns every Saturday.
When I close my eyes and remember my early years, it’s his voice that sings me rhymes and lullabies.
Our love for music and song flow from that voice.

He was an artiste and master craftsman.
While he plied his trade as a carpenter, he could build a beautifully functional anything.
Our home used to be filled with carvings of little animals he made.
Speakers, he built, filled our home with music and song.
School books used to be adorned with his sketches (as was my homework)

There’s a Mickey on my bookshelf door that smiles at me, everyday.
I write these words on a table he built 25 years ago (as he did everything else at home.)
Mom never had to worry about knives or dressing tables.

If there was anything that needed doing, he’d do it.
A grassroots worker, he helped build up two little church congregations.
He helped people around in our little chawl.
“Uncle” was always helpful with time and money and chocolates for little ones who always seemed to find him, wherever he was.

He was a giver and a doer.
A Good Samaritan of the highest order, he’d give the shirt off his back if he could.
Be kind to those in need is something he lived and imbued in us.
Folks call me a sentimental fool at times.
And I’m proud! My father taught me that.

The more I live my life, the more I realise I’ve imbued so much of him.
The curiosity to always learn something new.
The strength to endure whatever life throws your way.
Valuing family over everything else.
Being kind.
Amor Fati.

And to paraphrase Brett again, as I think of the life my Dad led, as I think of the shade he sheltered me in, I’ve a painful yearning to return home.
The Greeks called this nostalgia.
And while my heart aches for that time, it’s a good ache.
I’m glad I have those memories and I’m indebted to Dad for giving them to me.